Wang Wei, secretary general of the Games’ organizing committee said that air quality remains a major concern for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. While pollution controls are having an effect - Beijing experienced 241 ‘good air quality days’ last year, up from 100 in 1998 — there’s much room for progress.

‘We want to make sure the athletes have the best air quality,’ Wang Wei told a conference sponsored by Asia Society Southern California. Wang promised foreign reporters who will flock to China will be free to roam the country to cover not just sports but social problems created by the nation’s vast wealth gap and failings of the central government to alleviate corruption and rural poverty.

‘The world does not really know as much about China as we wish,’ Wang Wei said.

He also promised a well-mannered host city — as he put it a ’sound social atmosphere’ that visitors sometimes have found lacking in years past’.

He cited public education campaigns on standing in line, and not spitting or littering.

There’s also a campaign to educate Chinese about how to watch sports they may not know well. Do not clap or yell, Wang Wei pointed out, when someone is about to shoot a rifle.
Source: Slam Sports