text: The race for clean Olympic air | Hélène Mulholland | Sport | The Guardian
  The race for clean Olympic air
  After the smog problems of Beijing, London has still to reach agreed air quality standards ahead of 2012
  Buildings are shrouded in haze and smog in Beijing in 2008
  Wednesday 30 March 2011 04.00 EDT
  First published on Wednesday 30 March 2011 04.00 EDT
  With construction on the stadium complete and plans for a blue hockey pitch unveiled, preparations to date for the 2012 Olympics appear to be running smoothly, but in the background is an issue that plagued the Beijing Games.
  The Beijing organisers took drastic measures three weeks before the Games to lift the haze of smog: banning half the city's 3.3m cars from the roads each day, depending on whether their number plates ended in an odd or even digit.
  That proved insufficient so efforts were stepped up.
  Let's hope this race is won so that athletes and spectators breathe in cleaner air next year at what the government promised would be the greenest ever Games. Topics