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A typical day in Beijing is not a pretty site. It's especially disconcerting if you're a toxicologist, like Steven Packham from the Utah Division of Air Quality.
"The average of a Beijing day is 10 times bigger than a day in Utah," he said.
Packham is talking about the pollution, specifically particulate matter. He says, "[It's] anything that is a solid, that is very, very small, that is suspended in the air."
Packham demonstrated for us just how bad the air is in Beijing compared to Utah by using pills. He says one pill equals one day's worth of particulate matter Utahns breathe in along the Wasatch Mountains. It's a normal dose, not considered unhealthy.
But in China, Packham says, "If you're there for three days, that's like being a month in Utah, in terms of the amount of particulate matter you take into the lungs."
Packham bases this demonstration on 10 years worth of air samples taken in Utah from Logan to Spanish Fork. He could only find one year's worth of air samples for Beijing from a study in 2005.
Now, if you are an athlete competing in Beijing? Packham says, "This is something that can significantly affect the lungs and their performance, I would think."
Athletes breathe in much more air than us, and they breathe in much deeper than us, and all through their mouths, so all that smog has a clear shot right into their lungs.
For the past two months, the Chinese government has taken drastic measures to clear the air. Chemical plants, mines, construction sites have been shut down, along with hundreds of factories in and around Beijing.
Residents can only drive on every other day, and traffic will not be allowed inside the city. It's estimated up to 50 percent of Beijing's 3.3 million cars will be cleared from the streets during the Olympics.
Athletes and coaches recognize the efforts. U.S. women's track and field coach Jeanette Bolden says, "The local organizing committee and China are doing all they can to reduce the pollution over there."
The U.S. track team will be training outside Beijing, on the coast where the air is cleaner, arriving in the city only days before the event.
Josh McAdams, a former BYU student who will be competing in the 3,000 meter steeplechase, says training in Utah during bad air days has helped him know what to expect in China. But he doesn't think pollution will affect his race.
"When you step on the line, everyone is breathing the same air -- Kenyans, German, everyone's got to deal with it," he said.
McAdams says besides training on the coast, the team will be given special dust masks to wear.
Packham says masks can help filter the larger debris from being breathed in. He also recommends staying inside as much as possible and breathing slowly, through the nose. That's not really possible if you're going for the gold.
E-mail: abutterfield@ksl.com
