UK Olympians to 'camp' in Macau

MACAU, China (CNN) -- Great Britain's Olympic athletes are choosing a gambling mecca in southern China over Beijing as a place to train and rest until just prior to their events during the 2008 Summer Games, a British team official says.

Citing the frenetic pace of the Chinese capital and the anticipated crowds that will flock to the Summer Games, British authorities say its team will instead be housed in Macau, a former Portuguese colony that today rivals Las Vegas as a casino haven.

"They will eat, they will train, and they will sleep," Bernard Cotton, the British Olympic Association's performance manager, said of the UK athletes' routine prior to competition. The British team will be "most boring" during this intense period, he said.

Turned over to China by Portugal in 1999, Macau is a three-hour plane flight south of Beijing. Despite witnessing a recent explosion of high-end casinos -- Macau has 23 gambling palaces, Las Vegas 30 -- the island will be quieter than the Chinese capital, Cotton said.

Many other countries are reportedly choosing to hold their athletes back from Beijing until just prior to competition, citing factors such as pollution. The U.S. swimming team, for example, will stay in Singapore until competition begins, The Associated Press reported.

Cotton did not name pollution as a worry but instead discussed the massive scale of staging the Summer Games.

During 15 days of competition, Beijing will welcome more than 10,500 athletes and 15,000 media staff jockeying for space and facilities, Cotton pointed out. Additionally, Beijing will host what is expected to be hundreds of thousands of spectators coming to watch the Games and will employ some 70,000 volunteers to greet them. Watch some of the challenges Beijing is facing ahead of the Games »

The goal of staying in Macau is to give the British team the "best possible chance of peaking and then taking them (to Beijing) 24-72 hours before their events," Cotton said.

The British athletes won't be distracted by Macau's gambling scene, because they've been training years for this "one chance," Cotton said. "They're not of the mind to squander all that effort." Besides, their hotel doesn't have a casino, he added.

As for Beijing's pollution, Cotton said that while he thought "one or two" athletes might choose to wear masks, "this is a part of sport," and there were no specific plans to announce. He said the team was "pretty confident" Beijing would pull off a "sunny" Games.

The British Olympic Association has chosen to shelter its athletes away from the frenzy of the Olympic host city in the past: The UK team chose for their "holding camps" Tallahassee, Florida over Atlanta in 1996; the Gold Coast over Sydney in 2000; and Cyprus over Athens in 2004.

The only British teams that will not stay in Macau are equestrian, sailing and rowing, which will stay closer to their Olympic venues. Hong Kong, an hour ferry ride away, will play host to Olympic equestrian events, while Qingdao will host sailing, and Beijing rowing.

The British team chose Macau over various cities, including the former British colony of Hong Kong, which the team "would have been predisposed to," Cotton said. Macau was selected because its training facilities were all within a compact distance, and Hong Kong was considered too frenetic, Cotton said. E-mail to a friend

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