To Beijing Games, Bring Your Own
By SELENA ROBERTS
Sports of The Times
July 11, 2007
American athletes who normally sling a duffel bag over their shoulders for event travel may opt to lug a steamer trunk as they begin descending upon China in advance of the 2008 Beijing Summer Games — or the B.Y.O. Olympics.
Bring Your Own Crest. This go-to item is important for gymnasts who prefer a pearly Mary Lou Retton-sized smile for a Wheaties box pose instead of the nasty side effects from the recent batches of Chinese toothpaste tainted with a poison found in antifreeze.
Bring Your Own Fish. Swimmers especially dig food with fins, but not even Michael Phelps — whose daily 4,000-calorie diet includes a lovely shrimp cocktail — would want to risk a medal by eating seafood made in China if it contains a bacteria count higher than a public swimming pool.
Bring Your Own Kibble. It seems about half of all women who compete in the Olympics — or at least Venus and Serena Williams — travel with teacup dogs in their vented Louis Vuitton carriers. Safe to say they probably won’t trust the pet food from their Beijing grocer.
The B.Y.O. list has grown legs because of a dizzying series of food and consumer product crises in China, where even Thomas the Tank Engine was discovered to be toxic.
Too soon to fret? In September, with a warm-up event to test the readiness of Beijing’s hosting panache, the Women’s World Cup will take place in China.
Much ado about nothing? In an extreme measure to show how seriously it takes its embarrassing product safety record, China executed the former chief of its State Food and Drug Administration yesterday for taking bribes.
The execution was carried out while the nation’s food and drug regulatory officials assembled at a news conference basically to declare war on contaminated food.
As The New York Times reported, a senior official acknowledged China’s safety network still allowed too many unsafe goods to slip through, and said that at the moment the trend “is not promising.”
Maybe by 2010, Chinese officials contend, they’ll have a handle on it. Two years after the Beijing Summer Games.
In about 14 months, by the count of the Xinhua News Agency, athletes and coaches will consume the bulk of 330 tons of fruits and vegetables, 82 tons of seafood and 131 tons of meat.
Is Pepto-Bismol an official Olympic partner, yet? The United States Olympic Committee, for one, isn’t reaching for a panic button or packing extra precautions.
“At this point, no, we’re not concerned,” said Darryl Seibel, a spokesman for the U.S.O.C. He said that his organization had been assured by the Beijing organizing committee “that they will take all steps necessary to make certain the food supply in the athlete village and for all athletes will be safe.”
•
Some athletes have expressed private concerns within their own circles, which should not come as a far-fetched response to anyone who has ever seen an Olympian check a water bottle to make sure the seal wasn’t broken by a saboteur.
As a part of their DNA, athletes are wary to the point of obsession about what they eat, drink and rub on their bodies. Whether it comes in a tube or on a dish or with a straw, nothing is suspicion proof.
This pathology of paranoia blooms to the point of caricature when an athlete is snagged by the doping police. Last year, the world’s fastest man, Justin Gatlin, blamed his elevated levels of testosterone on a vindictive masseuse with laced rubbing balm. And the cyclist Floyd Landis first pointed to a drunken night with a whiskey bottle as his defense for testing positive during his miracle race to win last year’s Tour de France.
•
This pattern of artful blame isn’t new. It was the German track star Dieter Baumann, a gold medalist in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, who broke the tape on creative excuses. Baumann posted a reward for anyone who could lead him to the jealous rival who spiked his toothpaste with nandrolone.
Brushing, now fraught with peril again. What are skittish athletes to do if they need to know every ingredient they ingest?
The U.S.O.C. is going B.Y.O. in Beijing: Bring Your Own Compound. American officials did not formulate a traveling training oasis in response to the China food scares, but back by popular Olympian demand, the U.S.O.C. will operate a high-performance center in Beijing.
The facility will tend to the special needs of United States athletes with specific fitness regimens and discerning diets.
“This is not a Plan B in any way,” Seibel said. “But we will be operating our high-performance center with a food-services provider. This is not a backup. It is something we have done before. This is not unique to China.”
Beijing officials would be mortified — and insulted — if it were. But the training compound is the same as the one the U.S.O.C. lugged to the 2004 Athens Summer Games and the 2006 Turin Winter Games in an attempt to replicate the training environment athletes excel in at home.
The only difference this time? Given the weekly food sirens from China, and the suspicious nature of Olympians, athletes in Beijing will no doubt need a reservation for a training table with made-in-America cuisine.
E-mail: selenasports@nytimes.com
Sports of The Times
July 11, 2007
American athletes who normally sling a duffel bag over their shoulders for event travel may opt to lug a steamer trunk as they begin descending upon China in advance of the 2008 Beijing Summer Games — or the B.Y.O. Olympics.
Bring Your Own Crest. This go-to item is important for gymnasts who prefer a pearly Mary Lou Retton-sized smile for a Wheaties box pose instead of the nasty side effects from the recent batches of Chinese toothpaste tainted with a poison found in antifreeze.
Bring Your Own Fish. Swimmers especially dig food with fins, but not even Michael Phelps — whose daily 4,000-calorie diet includes a lovely shrimp cocktail — would want to risk a medal by eating seafood made in China if it contains a bacteria count higher than a public swimming pool.
Bring Your Own Kibble. It seems about half of all women who compete in the Olympics — or at least Venus and Serena Williams — travel with teacup dogs in their vented Louis Vuitton carriers. Safe to say they probably won’t trust the pet food from their Beijing grocer.
The B.Y.O. list has grown legs because of a dizzying series of food and consumer product crises in China, where even Thomas the Tank Engine was discovered to be toxic.
Too soon to fret? In September, with a warm-up event to test the readiness of Beijing’s hosting panache, the Women’s World Cup will take place in China.
Much ado about nothing? In an extreme measure to show how seriously it takes its embarrassing product safety record, China executed the former chief of its State Food and Drug Administration yesterday for taking bribes.
The execution was carried out while the nation’s food and drug regulatory officials assembled at a news conference basically to declare war on contaminated food.
As The New York Times reported, a senior official acknowledged China’s safety network still allowed too many unsafe goods to slip through, and said that at the moment the trend “is not promising.”
Maybe by 2010, Chinese officials contend, they’ll have a handle on it. Two years after the Beijing Summer Games.
In about 14 months, by the count of the Xinhua News Agency, athletes and coaches will consume the bulk of 330 tons of fruits and vegetables, 82 tons of seafood and 131 tons of meat.
Is Pepto-Bismol an official Olympic partner, yet? The United States Olympic Committee, for one, isn’t reaching for a panic button or packing extra precautions.
“At this point, no, we’re not concerned,” said Darryl Seibel, a spokesman for the U.S.O.C. He said that his organization had been assured by the Beijing organizing committee “that they will take all steps necessary to make certain the food supply in the athlete village and for all athletes will be safe.”
•
Some athletes have expressed private concerns within their own circles, which should not come as a far-fetched response to anyone who has ever seen an Olympian check a water bottle to make sure the seal wasn’t broken by a saboteur.
As a part of their DNA, athletes are wary to the point of obsession about what they eat, drink and rub on their bodies. Whether it comes in a tube or on a dish or with a straw, nothing is suspicion proof.
This pathology of paranoia blooms to the point of caricature when an athlete is snagged by the doping police. Last year, the world’s fastest man, Justin Gatlin, blamed his elevated levels of testosterone on a vindictive masseuse with laced rubbing balm. And the cyclist Floyd Landis first pointed to a drunken night with a whiskey bottle as his defense for testing positive during his miracle race to win last year’s Tour de France.
•
This pattern of artful blame isn’t new. It was the German track star Dieter Baumann, a gold medalist in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, who broke the tape on creative excuses. Baumann posted a reward for anyone who could lead him to the jealous rival who spiked his toothpaste with nandrolone.
Brushing, now fraught with peril again. What are skittish athletes to do if they need to know every ingredient they ingest?
The U.S.O.C. is going B.Y.O. in Beijing: Bring Your Own Compound. American officials did not formulate a traveling training oasis in response to the China food scares, but back by popular Olympian demand, the U.S.O.C. will operate a high-performance center in Beijing.
The facility will tend to the special needs of United States athletes with specific fitness regimens and discerning diets.
“This is not a Plan B in any way,” Seibel said. “But we will be operating our high-performance center with a food-services provider. This is not a backup. It is something we have done before. This is not unique to China.”
Beijing officials would be mortified — and insulted — if it were. But the training compound is the same as the one the U.S.O.C. lugged to the 2004 Athens Summer Games and the 2006 Turin Winter Games in an attempt to replicate the training environment athletes excel in at home.
The only difference this time? Given the weekly food sirens from China, and the suspicious nature of Olympians, athletes in Beijing will no doubt need a reservation for a training table with made-in-America cuisine.
E-mail: selenasports@nytimes.com
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