Mike of the Beijing Olympic Games 2008 blog recently posted this:

It could be a tough time for athletes who finish their competitions early or for those looking to get out for a bit of shopping or sightseeing. Access Asia reports that athletes will only be allowed to leave the village to attend venues of their competition. Anyone who has been in China can understand this happening. Everyone in China lives, works and studies in a “compound” with surrounding fences and manned security round the clock.

As to the reasons for high security Access Asia says:

“Worries that athletes may leave the Village to do impromptu reporting on human rights or other issues is one; keeping them all close to the people who are sponsoring the Village is another; but the major reason is that if they leave the Village they may be tempted to eat like the rest of us – i.e. not the specially prepared, reared and grown foods that are being made available in the Village (and in the Village only) – and that could mean plenty of athletes failing dope tests due to high levels of residual antibiotics and steroids commonly found in meat on sale in China.”

I don’t know what’s most upsetting about this story. An Olympic lockdown seems that China is reverting to its old tourism policies of heavily supervised tours along arranged routes and foreigner-only hotels, which is quite a few steps backward and definitely not the image China wants to project.

It also worries me that getting a normal Chinese meal — the food I’ve been eating for just under 2 years now — has enough random antibiotics and steroids to make one fail a drug test!

Via Beijing Olympic Games 2008 blog and Access Asia