Azure skies await the world's best sailors at Qingdao
While the skies over Beijing, a proud Olympic capital these days, remain annoyingly grey, the contrast with the azure horizon that spreads before Qingdao — an Olympics host city on China’s east coast — is striking. A former colonial port known mainly for its German-inspired ‘Tsingtao Beer’, Qingdao will host the world’s best sailors who have shown satisfaction with the environment and the first-class sailing facilities.
When asked about their Olympic preparedness, city leaders like to quote US presidential candidate Barack Obama: “Yes, we can.” Wang Wei, vice-president of Qingdao’s Olympic committee relates a series of challenges the city has had to face in the run up to the games — two typhoons, torrential rain and, most infamously, an attack of green algae.
“The green algae was our uninvited Olympic guest,” says Wang. Last month 32 percent of the sailing competition area was covered with the green weed and the city had to mobilise more than 2,000 vessels and some 10,000 people on land daily to get rid of the growth. Nothing is visible on the shimmering water surface fronting the city’s main promenade these days. Games organisers urge their guests not to leave the city before having experienced its “two famous foams” — the sea and the beer.
