QINGDAO, China — China’s latest Olympics nightmare is a vast algae bloom that covers one-third of the sea where the world’s best sailors are supposed to compete in just over a month.
Athletes call it the blob, the carpet, the fairway. “We almost think of it as land,” said Carrie Howe, a member of the U.S. team and her squad’s unofficial algae remover. During practice, she dips her hand into the goo three or four times an hour to remove it from the rudder.
When it collects shaggily on the boat’s tow rope, she and her teammates refer to it as “the dog.” They’ve named it Hickory.
Chinese officials are trying to make the stuff go away. Hundreds of soldiers cleaned it up by hand in a seaside park Wednesday.
About 10,000 regular citizens were doing the same, while more than 1,200 boats hauled it in by net, the workers smiling and flashing the two-fingered victory sign to journalists.
“We all need to pitch in,” said Gao Shaofan, a massage parlor employee who was stuffing the algae into plastic sacks with her co-workers. “This is the worst it’s ever been that we know.”
Chinese officials and some experts blamed it on a combination of factors, including warmer seas, winds from the south and an “exotic” strain of algae from farther down the coast.
Wang Liqing, a marine biology professor at Shanghai Ocean University, said in a phone interview that the bloom could be caused by pollution, which deposits excessive nutrients in the water and causes algae to grow at abnormal rates. China’s east coast is highly industrial.
