The Olympics will kick off exactly two years from today. Despite the highly public dismissal of Liu Zhihua, the Beijing official in charge of Olympic construction a few months ago, it seems that the city’s Olympic projects are on, or ahead of schedule. The major concern, however, is that authorities are losing their much vaunted battle to have a Green Olympics, particularly with regard to air quality. China Daily reported that the city recorded a record 29 "blue sky" days in July, but only because it was raining on 27 of those days. Yes, apparently rainy days are classified as "blue sky days".
Organising Committee VP Jiang Xiaoyu was all over the media yesterday promising that the targets would be met. He has even promised that the weather will be fine for the Opening Day ceremony, stating simply and, it would seem, in all seriousness, that he reckons the chance of rain in Beijing 731 days from now is "30 to 40%".
Meanwhile, the Guardian is carrying an interesting Reuters story about Chen Chengda, a Chinese Olympic footballer in the 1950s and 60s, the course of whose entire career was dicated by the political turbulence in China after the founding of the PRC.
