Rowing China is playing dirty

As you may or may not know, I will not be living in the Olympic Village while in Beijing. This decision is based on our experiences from Athens where the bus travel was simply a nightmare. We had to wake up at 5:30am to get the 6:15am bus which could be full, then drive almost an hour out to the course. Upon our arrival we generally watched as the US, British and other federations walked through security after a mere 5 minute car ride from the house they had rented down the street. It was frustrating and the thinking was....why didn't we do that??
You might be thinking....that isn't much, but it truly is when you are trying to peak for the biggest race of your life under the extreme heat of the sun and pressure of the Olympics. Anything that isn't rowing, eating, sleeping or being inside air conditioning is not a good idea.

The reason that I have brought this up is due to some recent developments with the accomodations booked in Beijing for the rowing teams from New Zealand, Italy, France and Great Britain. They booked their hotel near the course ages ago, paid their deposit only to find out recently that they will now be unable to stay in the hotel and will have to either stay in the village or go elsewhere. The ironic part is this. According to reports, the Chinese Rowing Federation has now booked the entire hotel for themselves!! Unbelievable!! That is certainly making us nervous as we are booked in a hotel out by the course. What will be next, we can't stay there due to a health scare?? Amongst ourselves we have joked that on the day of the finals the buses out to the rowing course will "break down" or some unforeseen delays occur and throw a wrench into plans.
Thankfully we are still ok at our hotel but it certainly is casting a dirty shadow over the Chinese Rowing Federation if this stunt is in fact true. I'm all for a fair fight, but to me, that is downright dirty!

Here is a link to the story.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sundaystartimes/4560089a6656.html

Here is another posted after the one above

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4562848a26500.html