China's Olympic Hurt Pride

I thought this was funny. Yesterday some US Olympic cyclists made a bit of a splash in China after they arrived wearing protective face masks:

After months of speculation about how Olympic athletes would react to the air quality problems here, some answers arrived at the airport Tuesday, when four track cyclists on the United States team stepped off their flight wearing masks over their mouths and noses.

They were the first athletes at these Summer Games seen wearing masks publicly to combat the effects of pollution, and the sight of them drew considerable attention and criticism from United States Olympic officials.

Yes, the USOC, China and others were apparently quite upset by this. And the cyclists got a little tongue-lashing for their precaution:

U.S.O.C. officials were apparently unhappy with their choice, scolding the cyclists for walking off the plane wearing the masks because it might embarrass the host country, Friedman and Lea said. The cyclists said they did not remember the name of the official who spoke with them.

“They told us that the Chinese were mad and that this is a politically charged issue, but we didn’t mean to offend anybody,” Friedman said. “When they handed us these masks, they never said, ‘Here they are, but don’t wear them.'"

Hmmm...now why on earth would Olympic cyclists wear protective face masks in China...? Hmmmm...



Oh yeah! Maybe it is because China's nonexistent environmental protections have turned their major cities into toxic shitholes!

*GASP!*

Now I could care less if the US won or lost at the Olympics, so I'm not saying this out of nationalist pride or anything, but seriously, if I were an athlete who had to be at peak physical performance, I would wear a mask in that dump too. Oh, and guess who else wears face masks in China? The Chinese!!:



Yeah, and those people aren't there to compete against the best athletes in the world. I think cyclist Mike Friedman summed it up in fairly obvious terms:

This is really a surprise, because I didn’t think it was going to be such a big deal. Why we wore the masks is simple: pollution. When you train your whole life for something, dot all your i’s and cross all your t’s, why wouldn’t you be better safe than sorry?

I've heard that some people found the masks disrespectful. I say inviting guests into a toxic waste dump is disrespectful, as are the clouds of pollution that blow into neighboring countries from China, as are China's numerous human rights violations, as is their pervasive censorship, as is China's steadfast support for genocide in Darfur. What, exactly, has China's repressive government done to deserve respect..?

The Olympics shouldn't have even been held in China, for health reasons and for moral ones. Take your pick, but the Americans aren't the ones to blame this time.