Foreign baseball teams have been fairly satisfied with the field's quality and host's hospitalities but worry about environmental pollution in an Olympic test event held in Beijing.

 

The test event has been expected to test-run organizing capacity of Wukesong Baseball fields which was built and amended under supervision of field and stadium experts from the Major League Baseball (MLB).

 

"We have no complaints on the fields which has been kept very well by Chinese staffs," said Japanese team manager Hoshino Senichi, the former Hanshin Tigers manager in Japanese Baseball League.

 

The organizer has done their bests to maintain the fields, the manager told Japanese press at a press conference, praising Chinese volunteers are "well-trained and warmhearted".

 

French and Czech players also expressed similar compliments to convenient arrangements in accommodation and traffic amid a traffic control in the downtown of Beijing from last Friday to Monday.

 

The traffic ban removed 1.3 million private vehicles from Beijing's perpetually gridlocked streets each day, making player's buses arrive at the Wukesong fields without traffic jams.

 

The Beijing environmental watchdog said in an early statement that particulate matter pollutions caused by construction in the capital has been reduced by 42 percent compared with that of the same period of last year.

 

However, foreign players and managers remained very cautious of the air condition in the field.

 

The Japanese team has brought a large amount of mouth covers, eyedrops and other cleaning materials with their players to deal with an overestimated air pollution in Beijing.

 

The team's sanitarian told Japanese press that they felt relief after arrival, realizing the pollution was not that bad they had estimated.

 

But Japanese baseballers have been still advised to use personal sanitary equipment like toothpaste brought from Japan and also pay attention to the meals.

 

According to the China Environmental Monitoring Center, the air quality of Beijing within the four days from August 18 had been level II with particulate matters pollution. Blue skies rarely appeared during the games despite sunny daytime of the tournament.

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(Xinhua News Agency August 23, 2007)