China has just announced that during the Olympics, dog meat will be taken off the menu at Beijing restaurants. Whoa! That's a relief. Or is it? Clearly, we are not all one culture,the world would be worse off if we were all alike.  Could you imagine McDonald's and Starbucks on every corner of the world's cities.  Oops! Looks like that is actually in the works. But, the point is that we are not all alike and in some cultures they do things differently than ours. We raise beef cattle for meat, hopefully the Chinese aren't going around snapping up people's pets.

The air pollution in Beijing will be a huge factor for the Games. China tried to pull a fast one by moving the sensors monitoring air quality further out of the city center, but recently an independent crew sampled the air and found that the reading for particulate matter is seven(that's 7) times over the limit set by the EPA for safe air quality. Cough, cough. I don't think you will see it, but can you imagine watching some athletes competing with particulate masks.

At first I was disappointed that Alan Webb did not make the team for the 1500m. But, on second thought it is probably the best that could have happened.  Like Jim Ryun of forty years ago, Alan seems incapable of running well when it is a race and not just a time trial chasing a rabbit. Big meets like the World Championships and the Olympics are almost always tactical and Webb just comes up short when you aren't just running flat out from the gun.

On the other hand, Nick Symmonds looks like a real bet to medal in the 800m. Not only does he have a huge kick, but he seems to understand how to run in the big meets.  I wonder how he learned that competing for Division 3 Willamette College in Oregon. Symmonds is about as exciting as it gets on the track.  Don't miss his races in Beijing.

All for now,

Bruce