The Chinese Winter Olympic delegation bought an emergency supply of 180 duvets before they departed for Turin, after they had got reports saying the bedding in their hotel was not very thick. The 'secret weapons', as the duvets became known, cost 30,000 yuan ($28,892) to transport to Italy, meaning it would have been a lot cheaper to buy them when they arrived. An advance party notified the Chinese delegation that Turin was very cold and the duvets on the hotel beds appeared to be inadequate. Hours before the team boarded their flight, 180 downy quilts were procured and transported to the airport, according to the Sina.com website. Officials described them as their 'secret weapon against the cold Turin winter'. But before the 150-strong delegation boarded the Air China chartered plane with their bulky bedding they were forced to pay a surcharge of 30,000 yuan for their excess baggage. 'If I had known the excess baggage fee was going to be that much I would have waited to buy the duvets in Turin,' Cui Dalin, the deputy head of the delegation, told the website. Adding to their woes was the fact their flight was delayed by snow in Beijing for two hours, and when they finally arrived in Turin they were further delayed as they struggled to load all the duvets on to buses. 'They were all totally shattered by the time they finally got to their hotel,' one Chinese reporter said.
