Olympic athletes want to train in masks Matt Reed was 1,500 meters into the last segment of the triathlon when he found himself gasping for oxygen. His legs were still pounding away at the pavement, his body pumped up after cruising through the swimming and cycling contests, but his lungs were shutting down. The 32-year-old American triathlete blames air pollution for triggering his asthma attack during the September track meet. If he returns to Beijing for the Olympics, he says he will wear a mask except while actually competing. And he'll try to avoid showing up until the second week of the games when the triathlon is held, even though that would mean missing the Aug. 8 opening ceremonies. An increasing number of Olympians are threatening to skip part or all of the Olympics because they believe the air is unsafe. Belgian tennis champion Justine Henin said she will probably skip Beijing entirely because of fears the air would aggravate her asthma. Champion long-distance runner Haile Gebreselassie broke something of an unofficial taboo on complaining about the air when he announced this week that he would not run the marathon in Beijing, opting instead for the 10,000-meter run, which is easier on the lungs. Many teams have set up offshore training camps in South Korea or Japan, murmuring polite but shallow excuses to their Chinese hosts that they are avoiding the pre-Olympics media hype or trying to save money. "There is no other reason, but to stay out of the pollution. It's definitely to avoid the air,' said Reed, who if he qualifies will be training with the other U.S. triathletes on Korea's Cheju island. "This air (in Beijing) is just so terrible for your body.' The British Olympic Association commissioned scientists to develop a high-tech breathing mask for its athletes to wear while competing. U.S. Olympic officials say their athletes will not wear masks in competition but might at other times during their stay in Beijing. For the Chinese, for whom saving face is crucial, it would be a nightmare to have athletes parade in front of television cameras wearing masks, or a raft of no-shows at the opening ceremony. The country claimed to have invested more than $16 billion in cleaning up Beijing's air in advance of the Olympics. The Chinese pride themselves on mastering nature; in this case, they have literally tried to move heaven and earth. Working under the auspices of the futuristic-sounding Bureau of Weather Modification, scientists have been practicing techniques to induce rain showers before the games that would wash away pollutants. Beijing's planners have created almost overnight a forest twice the size of New York's Central Park on a 1,750-acre site just north of the Olympic village in order to raise oxygen levels. Nearly a dozen factories are in the process of closing or relocating outside of Beijing, including a massive steelworks with 120,000 employees. Factories hundreds of miles away in Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Hebei and Shandong provinces will suspend operations during the Olympic period. About 1.5 million cars