Aug. 23, 2001
USOC offers praise for Beijing
By Steve Friess
Special for USA TODAY
BEIJING — Top officials of the United States
Olympic Committee showered praise on China's capital city Wednesday
as Beijing began playing host to the 21st World University Games,
widely viewed as its first rehearsal for the 2008 Summer Games.
USOC President Sandy Baldwin and interim CEO Scott Blackmun,
on their first trips to China, said they plan to avoid offering
unsolicited advice on preparing for an Olympics when they meet
with Chinese Olympic Committee Secretary-General Tu Mingde today.
"That is not an agenda we would bring up, because so often the
United States is perceived as the Big Brother who tells people
what to do and how to do it," Baldwin said.
But after the Salt Lake City Games in February, Baldwin said,
"we would have hosted eight Games, so we may have talks about
it then."
Instead, Baldwin and Blackmun gushed about the effective organization
for the biennial University Games, which has attracted more
than 5,200 athletes from 169 nations. In seven of the sports,
including track and field, swimming and basketball, about 180
Americans, primarily college students, are competing.
To further international ties, Blackmun said he and Baldwin
are going to propose a series of athletic contests between the
USA and China that would be scheduled for both countries over
the next 7 years.
"Everything is absolutely flawless here," Blackmun said. "It's
unlikely on this trip that we feel qualified to offer any advice
because they've already done a remarkable job."
U.S. athletes echoed Baldwin and Blackmun's approval of China's
facilities. Early transportation problems, mainly involving
difficulties getting from the athletes' village to the swimming
pool, were resolved quickly.
U.S. delegation chief Gary Cunningham called the athletes' accommodations,
built over the last 2 years, "the best village ever of all the
University Games I've been to."
Such statements instantly became gleeful pronouncements in the
Chinese media, which days earlier trumpeted International Olympic
Committee Vice President Kevin Gosper's comment that Beijing
would stage a better Summer Games than Australia last year.
The Chinese plan to spend $22 billion on roads, facilities and
environmental improvements before the Olympic torch is lit.
Smog, an overwhelming blight of the Beijing scenery, was noticeably
absent Tuesday and Wednesday following heavy rains last weekend.
The skies were so unusually clear that it gave rise to rumors
that the Chinese government had ordered their belching factories
to shut down to impress foreign visitors. Similar rumors surfaced
in February when the ever-present smog vanished coincidentally
for the 4-day visit by members of the International Olympic
Committee in advance of their vote last month, which awarded
the 2008 Games to China.
Officials from the Chinese Olympic Committee were unavailable
to comment Wednesday.
"I heard a lot about the pollution here, but I've been downtown
and to Tiananmen Square and out shopping, and it hasn't bothered
me one bit," said 2000 Olympic runner Michael Stember of Stanford
University. "This is a relatively clean city."
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