SYDNEY (AFP) - Australia will include an asthma specialist in its 50-strong medical team accompanying competitors to next year's Beijing Olympics amid pollution fears for athletes.

Poor air quality in Beijing, one of the world's most polluted cities, is a chief concern for many of the 10,000 athletes competing at the August 8-24 Olympics next year.

Some competitors plan to arrive in Beijing at the last moment before they compete to avoid the potential health risks from bad air.

Karen Holzer, an internationally respected asthma specialist, said endurance athletes were the most at risk in Beijing.

"I'm sure I've been selected because of the particularly challenging conditions we're going to be facing -- basically heat, humidity and poor air quality," Holzer told Thursday's Sydney Morning Herald.

"In fact, any activity that involves athletes gulping in large volumes of air."

Beijing has spent 15 billion dollars battling environmental pollution for a decade and the effort has produced some progress, but air pollution remains a key challenge.

Holzer is working to ensure Australian athletes are properly prepared and can perform at their optimum in the conditions.

She began testing Australian athletes in the run-up to the 2004 Athens Olympics to meet new International Olympic Committee requirements of proof for a misunderstood complaint.

"The IOC was concerned at the big increase -- from 9 percent in the 1980s to 21 percent at the Sydney 2000 Olympics -- in the number of competitors claiming to be asthmatic and needing inhaled medications," she said.

Holzer said she will ensure that proper challenge tests are done and that the correct medication forms for proven natural and exercise-induced asthmatics -- as opposed to people with other breathing problems -- are submitted to the IOC.

She plans to screen all athletes to identify those who may have undiagnosed asthma and those at high risk in Beijing of experiencing exercise-induced broncho-constriction (EIB).

The condition -- characterised by narrowed, inflamed, injured airways and in severe cases damaged vocal cords -- can be triggered in normally healthy athletes by intense activity and inhalation of air that is cold, dry, or as in Beijing contains allergens, irritant gases and particulate matter.

Vulnerable athletes can also be protected by reducing the acclimatisation time they spend in Beijing before competing, modifying when and where they train, and using aids such as face masks and air purifiers, she said.

Although individual sports will not finalise their teams for several months, the Australian Olympic Committee has already begun immunising potential competitors.

Under the scheme about 1,000 prospective Olympians are being offered immunisation against hepatitis A and B, typhoid, polio, tetanus, whooping cough, diphtheria, measles, mumps and rubella.

Influenza vaccine will be made available before the Games, and the AOC has also secured anti-viral drugs to treat potential cases of bird flu.