President Bush attended church here yesterday and urged the Chinese government to expand religious freedoms amid reports that a religious dissident was detained trying to attend the same service.

In a full day, the president also met with three top Chinese leaders and attended two sports events at the Olympic Games.

“Laura and I just had the great joy and privilege of worshiping here in Beijing, China,” Mr. Bush told reporters outside Beijing Kuanjie Protestant Christian Church, an “official church” under Communist Party control. “You know, it just goes to show that God is universal, and God is love, and no state, man, or woman should fear the influence of loving religion.”

A few hours later, during meetings with President Hu, Mr. Bush stressed the importance of not linking religious groups with terrorism, Dennis Wilder, a senior director for East Asian affairs at the National Security Council, told reporters in a briefing after the meeting.

“He reiterated today that we aren’t trying to impose something Western on China, that this is something that naturally develops in a society as it matures,” Mr. Wilder said, adding that Mr. Bush came away with the impression that, for China, “In the future there will be more room for religious believers.”

Religious freedom consistently has been a top human-rights issue in the Bush administration’s dealings with China.

COOLER TEMPERATURES MAY MEAN CLEARER SKIES

Temperatures averaged a cooler 79 degrees Fahrenheit — down from highs of 93F over the past two days — and officials were hopeful the dirty-white blanket that has enveloped the city would give way to cleaner, clearer skies.

“I think the blue skies will come, especially after today’s rain,” the executive vice president of the Beijing organizing committee, Wang Wei, said. “I have my fingers crossed.”

The rain was predicted to last over the next few days, and officials hoped that would wash away the pollutants that have been accumulating in the windless, muggy weather of recent days. The city’s air monitors again showed moderate pollution, with an official index of 82 — similar to the previous day, but calculated using the 24 hours before noon yesterday. Today’s figures are expected to show a decline.

An independent sampling conducted by the Associated Press around the Olympic Green, the main sports thoroughfare, showed an unusually high amount of particulate matter combined with very low visibility.

“Today is raining and tomorrow will have rain, too. That will help reduce the air pollution level. We believe the current air flow will be helpful in the dispersion of pollutants in the air,” the deputy director of the Beijing Meteorological Bureau, Wang Jianjie, said.

China has been holding its breath over the pollution that shrouded Beijing and threatened to overshadow its Olympic debut. The city’s pollution levels — typically at least two to three times higher than what the World Health Organization recommends for healthy air — has been the focus of concerns by games organizers and athletes alike.

SPRINTER THANOU TO SUE ‘TOTALITARIAN’ IOC

Greek sprinter Katerina Thanou will sue the “totalitarian” International Olympic Committee following their decision to ban her from competing in Beijing.

The IOC have clearly had enough of Ms. Thanou but the decision by the disciplinary commission is not the end of the affair.

The fear is that it could lead to the case that began on the eve of the last Games in Athens stretching on and even beyond the next Olympics in London.

The IOC ban, using rule 45.2 of the Olympic Charter, came on the grounds that Ms. Thanou had brought the Olympic movement into disrepute before the Athens Games.

That was when she and her training partner, Kostas Kenteris, missed a drug test and claimed later that they had been admitted to hospital in Athens after suffering injuries in a motorbike accident as they tried to return to the Olympic village.

Both athletes were disciplined and surrendered their accreditation.

In a scathing report that accompanied yesterday’s decision, the IOC maintained that Ms. Thanou’s behavior included “pretending she had a traffic accident” and “causing six medical doctors to hospitalise her for five days in order to avoid IOC controls.”

It resulted in, the IOC said, “a scandalous saga which cast a most negative shadow over the 2004 Olympic Games at the time of their opening ceremony.”

As a result, the IOC took up the option of looking again at her eligibility that they highlighted in 2004 and refused to ratify the sprinter’s accreditation to compete in Beijing, even though she had qualified and has been training with the Greek team.