Cyclists Apologize for Wearing Masks
Thread started by
Eric Hair at 08.6.08 - 11:25 am
Here In Original Context
BEIJING (AP)—A group of American cyclists has apologized to Beijing Olympic organizers after arriving in China’s capital wearing face masks.
Michael Friedman, Sarah Hammer, Bobby Lea and Jennie Reed released a statement Wednesday, a day after they caused a stir by showing up in the protective gear.
“The wearing of protective masks upon our arrival into Beijing was strictly a precautionary measure we as athletes chose to take, and was in no way meant to serve as an environmental or political statement,” the athletes said. “We deeply regret the nature of our choices. Our decision was not intended to insult BOCOG or countless others who have put forth a tremendous amount of effort to improve the air quality in Beijing.”
The host city’s air remains a concern with the start of the games approaching. Beijing has put into effect long-planned pollution-control measures, such as taking cars off the streets, and American officials are cautiously optimistic.
Jim Scherr, the U.S. Olympic Committee’s chief executive officer, said his organization didn’t ask the cyclists to apologize.
“Those athletes regret that action and have written an apology to BOCOG on their own behalf,” Scherr said. “They now realize and understand how their actions were perceived by the host nation and by the organizing committee.”
Scherr said masks have been issued to national governing bodies that requested them.
“I understand that about 200 of our athletes received those masks through the national governing body, not directly from the U.S. Olympic Committee,” Scherr said. “Hopefully they won’t have to use them.”
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EVEN THE NATIVES WEAR MASKS ALL THE TIME, THE CYCLELIST ARE RIGHT FOR POINTING THIS OUT.
eddieboyinla08.6.08 - 11:28 am
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Eddie is right. It's very common to wear masks in Asia.
I apologize for their apology.
marino08.6.08 - 11:31 am
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That's what I was thinking. Why apologize? Fuck being diplomatic.
Eric Hair08.6.08 - 11:32 am
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CYCLIST GIVE IN TO PRESSURE !!!
FUCKIN SELL OUTS, I HATE THAT !!!!
eddieboyinla08.6.08 - 11:32 am
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If the US would concentrate on telling us about our own problems.... we'd all be wearing masks here.
Roadblock08.6.08 - 11:32 am
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I dont understand why theyre apologizing, honestly. Was China/BOCOG/whoever the fuck that offended by their wearing masks when they arrived?
bananaphone08.6.08 - 11:34 am
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They don't make 'em like they used to.
PC08.6.08 - 12:56 pm
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Yeah I and a few other ridazz live in the
Diesel Death Zone and you don't see us dissing our hood or wearing masks do you? I say suck it up and stop your whining! Bring back gold or don't come home!
User108.6.08 - 1:01 pm
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On the other hand, If Michael Jackson was riding his bike through Beijing with a mask, There's gonna be a parade and the streets will shut down and everybody will party like it's 1999.
Noble Experiment08.6.08 - 1:02 pm
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Sarah Hammer and Jenni Reed are both powerhouses. I hope they win!! They're both really nice in person too!
redridinghood08.6.08 - 1:03 pm
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Michael Friedman was one of four US cyclists who arrived in Beijing wearing a black respiratory mask. Photo: Reuters
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MOM_RIDAZ42008.6.08 - 1:06 pm
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"Yeah I and a few other ridazz live in the Diesel Death Zone and you don't see us dissing our hood or wearing masks do you? I say suck it up and stop your whining! Bring back gold or don't come home!"
hahaha my point exactly. next time they run the amgen california tour I expect to see they cyclists with masks on when they hit the LBC
Roadblock08.6.08 - 1:16 pm
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I doubt the cyclists gave in easily. China's leadership is so singularly obsessed with maintaining control and projecting an image of perfection that I'm sure they strong-armed the cyclists. We're hardly perfect over here environmentally speaking, but what's happening over there is atrocious to anyone paying close attention.
0gravity08.6.08 - 1:35 pm
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"Already, China uses more coal than the United States, the European Union and Japan combined. And it has increased coal consumption 14 percent in each of the past two years in the broadest industrialization ever. Every week to 10 days, another coal-fired power plant opens somewhere in China that is big enough to serve all the households in Dallas or San Diego." NYTIMES...
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/business/worldbusiness/11chinacoal.html
0gravity08.6.08 - 1:51 pm
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Dudes, it's China. Things like freedom of expression, personal safety and individual rights don't have precedence over things like "saving face" or "tradition". "Doing what I want" would probably land me in jail. I've seen it before, I used to watch TV!
the reverend dak08.6.08 - 1:54 pm
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I also wrote a short
blog post about the face mask issue in Bejing, with links to other articles and sources, including Wired's look at the sensor data.
GarySe7en08.6.08 - 2:07 pm
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keep in mind... the only things we've really heard about china over our lives are brought to us by the United State's main stream media. My guess is that they are no worse than our country. Fix our country first. Then worry about someone else's country.
Roadblock08.6.08 - 2:18 pm
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I agree we need to fix our selves, but it is for sure worse there. For one thing the bar that defines a blue sky day with low particulate matter, is multiple times worse then the New York average, and Beijing has had trouble even reaching that. I've also read first hand accounts on blogs such as Ines Brunn's used face mask filter on her blog. I feel air quality issues should be an international issue because wind and rain can carry these pollutants across national borders, which is frequently the case in Asia.
GarySe7en08.6.08 - 2:29 pm
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Yeah, I'm so with GarySe7en; it's definitely MUCH worse over there and it does matter a lot to nearby countries and the entire global economy. Global warming is the obvious one with regards to coal and CO2, but as that NYTIMES article linked above explains (sorry, mainstream media), particulates and pollution are being carried as far away as to our meteorological stations here in California. And god knows what pollution and trash is swirling around the world's oceans. The great awakening I hope for over the next decades is about how truly small and interconnected our whole world is.
0gravity08.6.08 - 2:34 pm
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Relax people after the Olympics are over we wont have to worry about their air quality
tallcans4tallbikes08.6.08 - 2:36 pm
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not that I am disputing anything but can you send me some data that proves that you "know" it's "much worse over there"? I would like to see a comparison with the diesel death trap statistics of south LA and LBC.
and, at least from the reports - the chinese govt. is actively restricting business and trying to clean up their act.... restricting facotries and big business??! something unheard of over here in big business land.
Roadblock08.6.08 - 2:41 pm
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to those riders who call for the cyclests to "step up and stop wiening":
you guys are morons
the polution in china is far worse than that in the united states, and it doesn't matter how much fuel the use when they have no enviromental standards on fuel emmisions.
and air polution severly affects athletic performance. i guarantee there aren't going to be any new world records at out door events.
DartinyourNeck08.6.08 - 2:42 pm
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The mainstream media has jumped on this because of the Olympics, but environmental news publications and bloggers have been talking about these problems for years. It's not an overnight Western mainstream media conspiracy, this is real. Right now sitting over the Indian ocean is a region of air that has become permanently brown and can be seen from space. The wind patterns carry India's and surrounding nations air pollution to the same region over the sea, and rain periodically washes the toxins into the sea, another eco system at stake here. We're all on this planet together, it's an interconnected issue.
GarySe7en08.6.08 - 2:48 pm
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National Geographic article last year on the Brown Cloud issue.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/08/070801-brown-clouds.html
GarySe7en08.6.08 - 2:51 pm
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"have no enviromental standards on fuel emmisions."
oh come on now that't the kinds of exaggeration that the media would run their mouth about here in the states. actually they do have standards set by SEPA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Environmental_Protection_Administration
it may be or maybe not as good as our own EPA but our EPA is full of shit too. Run by big money.
All I'm saying is all this hating on China sounds retarded coming from people residing here in the USA one of the world's biggest polluters...
Roadblock08.6.08 - 2:55 pm
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I'm not disagreeing that china is a big polluter but the media is screaming about china when they should be screaming about our own country first.
Roadblock08.6.08 - 2:57 pm
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I also agree with what RB is sayin... it's kind of silly to be pointing fingers at other polluters these days, when close to nothing is being done right here. It's hypocritical. The issue does need to be constantly addressed on a global scale... but... how's that going to happen when people can't even take responsibility for themselves.
canadienne08.6.08 - 3:05 pm
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@ DartinyourNeck
user1 is not a moron. He is a hipster and he was being facetious.
@ rb
Yes China has worse air quality than the US and you can see it with your own eyes once you are there.Like LA in the 60s and 70s. L.A. used to be much worse than it is now. I don't know if they actually cleaned up the air or they made the pollution less visible.
In China you see the smoggy atmosphere year round.
marino08.6.08 - 3:07 pm
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But yeah... we are cleaner cause we don't have factories here any more... we get all our shit made in China....
marino08.6.08 - 3:09 pm
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"The mainstream media has jumped on this because of the Olympics, but environmental news publications and bloggers have been talking about these problems for years. It's not an overnight Western mainstream media conspiracy, this is real."
I'm not saying it's a conspiracy. Conspiracy implies behind the scenes. This is right in front of our faces. I'm totally sure that environmental news pubs and bloggers have been harping on both china and the US (and all sources of pollution they can find). So if the MSM media jumped on it because of the olympics then indeed it is an "overnight Western mainstream media" focus. because they havent been saying much before.... and they dont say much about the US either.
Whenever someone in the US talks about requiring big business to clean up it's act it gets the old eco-terrorist label or big business (the ones who own and support msm media) work to distract our own air quality issues. if the EPA had balls or the ability to enforce, they would shut down a ton of factories and force them to reform their manufacturing processes. but they don't and in factbig business lobbies hard to weaken the voice that the EPA has.
Roadblock08.6.08 - 3:11 pm
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those photos of Beijing are being thrown about everywhere. I'm not saying that they don't have air quality problems, but the natural climate of Beijing itself is affected by more than factory and automobile pollution. the city is located in a valley for which dust storms frequently occur and the cloud cover and fog also are persistant giving it a much more heinous look than is fairly being portrayed as smog.
go up to the end of reseda and look out over the valley and you will see a similar brown cloud of smog and dirt. I'm saying, all the whining about china may be justified... but damn are these athletes smart enough to make the same statements about cities like south LA and the valley? where the masks?
lol good point about the factories marino. another point that should be taken up by these athletes.... we are the ones purchasing all that crap.
Roadblock08.6.08 - 3:17 pm
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I am not trying to argue let's late America off the hook because China is worse. I just wanted to make clear that it is in fact terrible in China, and China's pollution is an international problem. America should be setting a world example, and right now it is epic fail in this regard. The EPA is a joke, and under Bush has probably done more harm then good. America consumes natural resources at voracious rate, and all this has to change. American consumerism is also tied to China directly as the factories there produce many of our goods.
While we clean up our act though I feel China does need to be pressured to clean up theirs too, because right now it has the potential to get much much worse. It undermines our own environmental initiatives if we fix our problems while having another country make our goods cheap and dirty. Both sides need to be working toward a solution and as long as China can put up factories without regulation, international businesses will set up cheap polluting factories there.
GarySe7en08.6.08 - 3:21 pm
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I got ya gary. no argument about that... I guess my point is... wouldnt it be "badicool" if the athletes actually wore their masks wherever there is a pollution problem no matter what country? even if it was in the USA?
Roadblock08.6.08 - 3:24 pm
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^^^ yeah i wonder about that too. When I moved here from Toronto, I'd get a sore throat any time I did any outdoor activities like jogging. That lasted for at least a month, and then I guess my body just kind of got used to the air. A lot of the time when I'm riding on busy streets I wonder what the hell I'm doing to my lungs, and if this is going to bite me in the ass later.
canadienne08.6.08 - 3:31 pm
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living in LA, in the Valley in particular or in the diesel death zone... you are fucked.. The Valley suffers from smog but also dust particles.... it's not unique to Bejiing I tell ya that.... but will our media or EPA harp on it like they do on china? in the 84 olympics did the government restrict private car usage or shut down factories? hell no.
Roadblock08.6.08 - 3:40 pm
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Although I've criticized China a lot here, I do have to hand it to them that with the pressure on they have taken fairly drastic measures to try and reduce the problem. I doubt an America city would attempt similar concessions for a single event like this.
GarySe7en08.6.08 - 3:53 pm
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funny thing is we don't even realize how much pressure the world puts (would like to put) on the USA and of course it's under reported or scoffed at by our mainstream media....
Roadblock08.6.08 - 3:58 pm
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GarySe7en -
The EPA is a joke, and under Bush has probably done more harm then good.
Me -
Oh on that you can count on! The Sierra Club has been keeping tabs on the EPA's record since Bush got into office. It's like the environment had a big target on it's back! Check the record for yourself,
Sierra Club - More than 300 Crimes against Nature,
Wiki - EPA Controversies BTW, nice blog on China that you posted earlier Gary. Really I think most of the problem lies with us, the US. We have such a vicarious appetite for goods. It's no longer replacing it when it's warn out, it's replace it with next years bells and whistles. There's never been a society that has been able to consume like us.
User108.6.08 - 5:37 pm
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You guys forgot something: it's always the cyclist's fault.
ephemerae08.6.08 - 10:42 pm
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China? Like Chynna!?! LOL GUIZE LOLZ
That's why I was MIA. In the meantime,
my one is red.
imachynna08.6.08 - 11:00 pm
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I guess nothing's going to change here until many start dying on a massive scale.
But, then again, maybe some people in their high chairs want that to happen.
We've already had hurricanes, outta-control fires, and other maladies that have done their fair share of harm.
But, what's it going to take to get the right kind of people off their ass and do something?
A good ole, natural disaster in a high-profile place, that's what.
bentstrider08.6.08 - 11:29 pm
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