I’m in Seoul right now watching the Korean national team’s Olympic warmup games versus Holland and Cuba. I’m staying at a  pretty  nice hotel in Gangnam, and the place is teeming with Olympic athletes, no doubt training and staying in Seoul to avoid Beijing as long as possible.

From an AP story today:

Beijing’s smoggy air has yet to clear after nearly two weeks of drastic pollution controls, which included removing half the cars from the city’s roads.

Officials are ready to apply additional “emergency measures,” that would include closing 100 more factories in Beijing, and about 115 more in the neighboring city of Tianjin and surrounding Hebei province.

Rogge has warned that outdoor endurance events of more than one hour would be postponed if air quality were poor.

U.S. men’s water polo coach Terry Schroeder said he noticed the pollution immediately when he arrived this week. “Some of our guys have inherent breathing issues, and to put them in this environment — it’s worrisome for sure,” Schroeder said.

The Greek and Canadian water polo teams are amongst the guests at the hotel. I think if I were a woman or gay I’d think I’d be quite excited right now. As is it stands, all this means for me is a longer buffet line.

Just for fun I looked for some information to see if either of these two teams have any kind of shot at a Gold Medal. The Greek women’s team won the silver in the 2004 games, but there’s nothing suggesting the men are very good. Hungary won the men’s gold in 2004 and that region of the world apparently dominates water polo. The consensus best player in the world is Aleksandar Sapic of Serbia (pictured above). In 2006, he signed a contract valued at one million dollars over three years, the richest contract in water polo history, to play professionally in Russia. Haven’t seen him.

I also found that USA goalkeeper Brandon Brooks is the only player on the team’s roster not from California. Actually, two of my mother’s brothers, also from California, played water polo in college. The Americans are also expected to challenge for a gold medal along with Russia.