Elite athletes years into training are arriving to a city often covered in smog. Beijing2022
There will be 223 athletes from the U.S. competing for gold in Beijing.Over the past few weeks, thousands of the world's most elites athletes have journeyed from their home countries to Beijing, a city often shrouded in a thick cloud of smog, for the Olympic Games.
Any additional particulate, such as the hazardous pollutant PM2.5 or even high counts of tree pollen, can cause inflammation in the airways and diminish the athlete's ability to breath efficiently, Dr. Matthew Heinz, an internist and hospital physician in Tucson, Arizona, and Pima County supervisor for District 2, told ABC News."When you're exercising, you are breathing and turning over more air," McCormack said.
"That will make it more difficult for them to take in a deep breath and as effectively and efficiently get that oxygen into their muscles to convert to usable energy," Avol said."They may again have periphery irritation, which may lead them to cough or not taking a deep breath, and that will affect their performance."
Performance while exercising is mainly determined by cardiovascular function rather than lung function, Dr. Carol Cross, a professor of internal medicine and physiology at University of California at Davis, told ABC News. But as early as last week, the city was still struggling with thick smog as concentrations of PM2.5 measured at 205 micrograms per cubic meter on Jan. 24, exceeding recommendations by the World Health Organization, theFireworks at celebratory events could worsen the air quality even more and exacerbate symptoms, McCormack said, while Heinz described the conditions the athletes must train and perform in as unfortunate.
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