双语新闻：日韩城市抢占北京奥运集训地市场
Cities Outside China Gear Up For TraineesAS THE Beijing Olympics draw closer, it isn't just China that is hoping to cash in on the event.
Cities across the region are gearing up to accommodate the thousands of athletes who will be training in Asia in the weeks leading up to the Games -- many of whom want to avoid Beijing's notorious smog until the last minute.
South Korea and Japan have been especially active in wooing athletes, campaigning for months -- in some cases years -- for a piece of the action. Cities in both countries boast advanced facilities a short flight from Beijing. Many hope to gain international recognition as well as a temporary boost to their incomes.
South Korea expects to host about 1,000 athletes and staffers from about 30 countries, while Japan expects athletes from about 24 countries during or just before the Games, which kick off Aug. 8.
Many Olympic teams are choosing to stay away from the city for as long as possible. Some, including the Swiss triathlon team, which will be stationed on the South Korean island of Jeju, are even skipping the opening ceremony.
"We want to stay away from the air pollution," said Dominik Purro, the Swiss triathlon-team manager. The team picked Jeju, best known for its beach resorts, partly for its "pure air," he said.
Athletes are withdrawing from some events altogether. Marathon-world-record runner Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia has said he won't participate in the marathon because he is asthmatic and is afraid the pollution could harm him.
Chinese officials have shut factories and enforced traffic restrictions to cut down on pollution leading up to the Games. They are requiring power plants as far away as Inner Mongolia to restrict emissions. Still, even the athletes training in China appear to be concentrated in pockets away from the capital, like Macau, which expects to host more than 1,000 athletes (though it suffers from air-pollution problems of its own).
An official of the Beijing Olympic organizing committee said few if any foreign athletes have arrived in the city for training so far, although the committee expects some to arrive closer to the Games. He declined to comment further.
For South Korea, hosting so many Olympic athletes holds symbolic significance. During the Seoul Olympics in 1988, the fast-growing nation still lacked advanced facilities, and many athletes chose to train in Japan. Accommodating numerous top athletes is a sign of how much South Korea has developed, says Ki Woo-kyoung, a member of the Korea Triathlon Federation. The group lured 12 triathlon teams, including those from the U.S., Hong Kong, Germany and the U.K., to Jeju Island.
South Korea's remote city of Chuncheon, two and a half hours northeast of Seoul, has been particularly aggressive. Two years ago, it heard that the Netherlands Olympic Committee was looking at Japan's Osaka and South Korea's Busan as possible training sites, and persuaded the group to send 110 athletes and staffers to Chuncheon instead.
The city, known for a big lake, promised the Dutch committee that it would let it know in advance when water is to flow in from nearby dams so the Dutch rowing team could practice without disruptions from waves. It even offered bodyguards for the athletes, though the committee declined. The city's Ladena Resort, meanwhile, is renting more than 100 beds to place inside traditional-style rooms, where guests usually sleep on thin mattresses on the floor.
The additional income is only expected to total 450 million South Korean won, or just over $430,000, but "this is a great chance for us to promote the city to the world as a sports training site," says Youk Jeong-mi, an official at Chuncheon city's sports department. In 2010, the city is preparing to host the World Leisure Congress & Leisure Games, where 15,000 athletes will participate in such leisure sports as water skiing.
Marti ten Kate, a program manager with the Netherlands Olympic Committee, says the athletes will stay in Chuncheon for most of their one- to three-week-long stay, flying to Beijing five days before their own events to avoid the humid weather and still have time to get used to the city.
In Japan, the southwestern city of Fukuoka beat cities in South Korea and China with its bid to house 150 Swedish athletes. Fukuoka hosted 10 visits by Swedish officials in three years and presented a radical offer: a 50% subsidy for accommodation and training fees and free transportation for the athletes around the city.
"All this was worth it, because it'll be a big chance for Fukuoka to get its name out there as a great city for sports," says Kikuhiro Takenaka, who coordinated the city's bid to host the Swedish team. He says the city is already looking at athletes who will be training for the next big sports event in Asia after the Beijing Olympics: the 2011 world track meet in Daegu, South Korea. Meanwhile, Tokyo is in the running for the 2016 Summer Olympics and hopes exposure as a training site now will help its bid.
日韩城市抢占北京奥运集训地市场
--随著北京奥运会日益临近，并非只有中国希望从这项体育盛事中获利。
中国周边国家的城市都加大力度吸引那些在奥运会开幕前数周希望在亚洲进行训练的数千名运动员，很多人都想在最后的正式比赛前避开北京污染严重的空气。
韩国和日本在吸引运动员方面尤其积极，为此展开的宣传活动长达几个月，甚至几年的时间。这两个国家的城市都宣扬它们具有先进的体育设施，而且距离北京也很近。很多城市希望以此来提高国际知名度，同时在短期内提振收入。
韩国预计将接待大约30个国家的1,000名左右运动员和其他人员，日本预计将在奥运会比赛期间或开赛前接待约24个国家的运动员。
许多奥运会参赛队伍都选择尽可能长地呆在北京之外。包括瑞士铁人三项队在内的一些队伍甚至不准备参加开幕式。瑞士铁人三项队参赛前将在韩国的济州岛集训。
该队的领队多米尼克?普罗(Dominik Purro)说，我们希望避开空气污染，选择以美丽的沙滩而闻名的济州岛的原因之一就是这里的空气清新。
有的运动员还决定不参加一些比赛。马拉松世界纪录保持者、埃塞俄比亚选手基比沙拉斯(Haile Gebrselassie)说，他不会参加马拉松比赛，因为他患有哮喘病，担心污染会加重他的病情。
为了在奥运会前降低空气污染，中国政府部门采取了关闭了工厂、对车辆上路进行限制等措施。它们还要求远在内蒙古的电厂限制排放。不过，甚至在中国训练的运动员也多选择了远离北京的地区，比如澳门预计将接待了1,000多名运动员，尽管澳门本身可能也存在空气污染问题。
北京奥组委一位官员表示，迄今为止抵达北京训练的外国运动员很少，不过奥组委预计临近开幕时将会有一些运动员抵达北京。他拒绝透露更多内容。
对韩国而言，接待如此多的奥运会选手具有象征性的意义。在1988年的首尔奥运会上，韩国还缺乏先进的体育设施，当时许多运动员都选择了到日本训练。韩国铁人三项协会的Ki Woo-kyoung说，接待如此多的顶尖选手显示了韩国取得了多么巨大的发展。该协会共吸引了包括美国、香港、德国和英国在内的12支铁人三项队到济州岛集训。
偏远的韩国城市春川在这方面尤为积极。两年前，听说荷兰奥委会可能会选择日本的大阪和韩国的釜山作为训练地点后，春川最终说服荷兰奥委会派110名选手和相关人员到这个城市训练。
位于首尔东北的春川以一个大湖而闻名，它距首尔约两个半小时车程。该市向荷兰奥委会承诺，将提前通知湖水从邻近的大坝流入大湖的时间，这样赛艇队就能在没有波浪干扰的情况下训练了。它甚至提出为运动员提供保镖，不过荷兰奥委会谢绝了。与此同时，该市的Ladena Resort还租借了100多张床放在传统风格的房间内，而以往客人通常都是在榻榻米上睡觉。
春川市体育部门的Youk Jeong-mi说，由此带来的额外收入预计只有4.50亿韩圆（约合43万美元），但这是我们向世界宣传春川作为体育训练地点的大好机会。2010年，春川将举办World Leisure Congress & Leisure Games，届时将有15,000名运动员参加滑水等休闲体育比赛。
荷兰奥委会的项目经理马蒂?滕?凯特(Marti ten Kate)说，运动员在一到三周的时间里将主要呆在春川，在各自的比赛前五天飞往北京，这样既能避开湿热的天气，又能有时间适应当地情况。
在日本，位于西南部的福冈市战胜了韩国和中国的城市，将接待150名瑞典选手。福冈在三年里接待了10批瑞典官员的来访，并提出了非常具有竞争力的报价：对食宿和训练费提供50%的补贴，并为运动员提供免费市内交通。
福冈市负责协调接待瑞典队集训的Kikuhiro Takenaka说，这一切都是值得的，这是福冈创出一流的体育城市名声的大好机会。他说，福冈已经将目光投向了北京奥运会后将在亚洲举行的另一项重大赛事：2011年在韩国大邱举办的世界田径锦标赛。与此同时，东京正在申请举办2016年夏季奥运会，它希望目前在训练场地方面的贡献能有助于其获得主办权。
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