Athletes losing to an unexpected obstacle

Elizabeth Pacheco Sports Editor

Located in the heart of the Hudson Valley, Vassar’s campus is relatively free of serious air pollution. Athletic teams practice outside daily and students are seen at all hours biking, running and simply enjoying the beauty of the outdoors. Not far from campus, however, the air quality begins to decrease and athletes can find themselves breathing in car fumes instead of flowers during their afternoon run. As air quality becomes a rising issue both in the United States and around the world, more and more studies reveal that continuous exposure to polluted environments does have a significant negative affect on an athlete’s performance.

A New York Times article entitled “For Athletes, an Invisible Traffic Hazard,” published in early July, referenced these studies and cited various athletes who currently live and exercise in polluted American environments. Many admitted to having “chest aches,” “coughing,” and developing “asthma” and “allergies” after repeated outside workouts.

For many athletes, the choice to exercise outside means substituting a crowded gym for a route clogged with vehicle emissions. Unable to escape this pollution, many will join a gym in order to extend their exercising years. While air pollution does put non-athletes at risk, Kenneth Rundell, director of the Human Performance Laboratory at Marywood University in Scranton, Pa., said in the Times article that “athletes typically take in 10 to 20 times as much air,” making them susceptible to breathing in larger doses of the air’s “fine particulates.”

Concern for athletes’ health is increasing as the 2008 Summer Olympics approach. Scheduled to be held in Beijing, China, the smog-choked city is deep in preparations for this international event. Beijing is building more roads and venues, but perhaps more importantly, billions are now being spent on attempting to clean the city’s polluted air.

Before the Olympics, however, the city will first play host to the Women’s World Cup from Sept. 10-30. While the event will bring attention to the city, the games will offer an important preview of how athletes will perform in Beijing’s polluted air.

Last April and May, Canada’s national women’s soccer team got a taste of this air quality when they trained in Beijing. Within a few days of practicing, “they ended up with a low-grade inflammation in the back of their throats, which trapped all the particulate matter in the air,” said the team’s exercise physiologist, Greg Anderson, who spoke on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered on Aug. 9.

With this grade of inflammation, the athletes could “feel the grit,” and by days five and six of practicing would “have to try and spit [the grit] out and clear the back of their throat.” Since soccer is a high-intensity sport requiring strong endurance, players quickly developed a “burning sensation” in their lungs when they began exerting themselves during practices.

Anderson described Beijing’s air quality by relating it to the pollution index (which numerically shows the pollution impact of products and services) of Washington, D.C. The low pollution index in Beijing during April and May was about 170, while the high was 240. In Washington, D.C., 30 is considered a high pollution index: at 40-60 warnings are issued about contracting heart and lung disease, and at 90, people are strongly encouraged to stay inside to avoid serious health risks. By comparison, Poughkeepsie’s air quality is generally in the range of 25-30.

Having recognized their less-than-adequate air quality, Beijing has closed down or moved many factories outside the city, and has built an entire underground transportation system to reduce vehicle emissions. Despite these efforts, “non-stop construction and booming car sales have made air quality even worse,” said an article published by the BBC in early August this year.

Jacques Rogge, President of the International Olympic Committee, has already gone on record saying that come time for the Games, “sports with short durations would not be a problem, but endurance sports like cycling are examples of competitions that might be postponed or delayed.” Many athletes have already planned to arrive in Beijing as close to their event as possible, even choosing to practice away from the city to prevent the air pollution from significantly affecting their performance.

With strong urging from the Olympic Committee, the city will continue to attempt to improve their air quality along with their other preparations for the Games. Perhaps Beijing will be a catalyst for other cities to begin working toward reducing their own air pollution, for the sake of both the athletes and the rest of the population.