Black clouds over Beijing Olympics...

"Every time I think I'm out, they pull me back in," said Michael Corleone in The Godfather: Part III (and Silvio in The Sopranos), and I'm starting to feel the same way.

It is not the sticky problem of putting my family business on a more legitimate footing that is giving me aggro, it is Beijing's pollution. It's fast becoming the type of media storm that is visible from space.

I suppose I could ignore it but that's a bit tricky when your brief is Olympic sports news and new stories about Beijing's air (lack of) quality appear every other day.

The most recent dark cloud to appear on the Olympic horizon came earlier this week when Athletics Australia announced that most of its competitors will not take part in the Games' opening ceremony. More...

See also: Beijing Olympics: live goldfish in key rings!!

And this: China, the Olympics, weather-control and megalomania...

And this: Yu Pingju the nut-seller defies mighty Beijing...