Beijing Olympics 2008

The Olympic flame scaled the highest point on Earth as Chinese mountaineers carried it to Mount Qomolangma on Thursday - in what is the high point of the relay.
Five mountaineers started relaying the torch atop the peak at around 9:12 am, a historic moment broadcast live by China Central Television.
“One World, One Dream,” team captain Nyima Cering yelled as his torch was lit, repeating the slogan for the Beijing Olympics.
The “Lucky Clouds” torch was lit at about 100 m from the summit amidst strong winds and minus-30 temperatures and then carried up by the five torchbearers - the unprecedented relay lasting about six minutes.
The climbers could be heard struggling for breath as they moved a few meters before passing on the flame to the next person.
The final torchbearer, a Tibetan woman named Cering Wangmo, stood silently on the peak with her torch while other team members unfurled Chinese and Olympic flags. They then came together, cheering “We made it” and “Beijing welcomes you” in Chinese, English and Tibetan.
The other three torchbearers were: Gyigyi, Wang Yongfeng, and Huang Chungui.
“I feel so good being the torchbearer. I know every climber wants to be a torchbearer,” Gyigyi, a two-time Qomolangma climber, told CCTV ahead of the ascent.
A 19-member team, dressed in red parkas emblazoned with Olympic logos, broke camp at 8,300 m before dawn and reached the top of the 8,844-m mountain a little more than six hours later.
The ambitious project to take the torch to the Himalayan peak was cast as the highlight of the relay ahead of the Games, which starts in exactly three months.
“We have fulfilled a promise to the world and a dream of all the Chinese people,” base camp commander Li Zhixin told reporters after being mobbed by jubilant friends and colleagues.
“The success belongs not only to the mountaineering team, but also to our country,” said Hu Jiayan, deputy director of the General State Administration of Sports.
Li said the team had planned to carry the torch to the peak late last month.
“But strong winds and heavy snow delayed us again and again. This week we had the first window of good weather.”

Cering Wangmo, the last of the five torchbearers on Mt. Qomolangma holds the torch at the peak of the mountain. The torch reached the peak of the world’s highest mountain on Thursday morning. [Xinhua]

Vice-President Xi Jinping congratulated the climbers for their feat.
“This is one of the greatest events in the history of the Olympic Games and a precious gift by the Chinese to the Olympics and people worldwide,” Xi said in a message to climbers.
The torch was designed by Chinese rocket scientists.
Fueled by propane, the flame burned brightly in the windy, oxygen-thin Himalayan air thanks to technology that keeps rocket motors burning in the upper reaches of the atmosphere.
“We installed a pressure-retaining valve in the torch, which enables the flame to withstand winds of up to 65 kph, nearly 6 cm of rain an hour, and temperatures of minus 40 C,” Liu Xingzou, the chief engineer of the project, said earlier.
The flame was carried most of the way in a special metal canister. As the team neared the summit, they used a wand to pass the flame from the canister to the torch.
Beijing promised to take the torch to Mount Qomolangma in its bidding campaign. The organizers chose a team of 36 climbers consisting of both ethnic Tibetans and Han Chinese; and 19 were picked for the final ascent.
China Central Television began airing the ascent live at 6 am with the help of eight cameramen who used portable microwave transmitters to send signals to a satellite ground station at the base camp.
The flame that crested the peak was taken from the main Olympic torch when it arrived in Beijing in March.
The Beijing organizers put on hold the main torch relay in the southern city of Shenzhen on Thursday while the final push for the summit was taking place.
The Qomolangma flame will be reunited with the main flame later in the relay when it passes through Lhasa in mid-June.

Xinhua, agencies contributed to the story

from: chinadaily.com.cn

World record holder and Athens Olympic champion Liu Xiang breezed to win the 110 meters hurdles in 13.19 seconds in the wet and cold weather at the Japan Grand Prix here on Saturday.
It was the sixth time for the Chinese athletics legend to win in Osaka. It is the second leg of the 14-round Grand Prix series.
Liu’s compatriot Shi Dongpeng finished the distant second in 13.63 and Maurice Wignall from Jamaica took the bronze in 13.84.
“I’m very happy with 13.19 in this weather and more importantly to have avoided injury,” Liu told reporters. “When it’s rainy and cold there is always a risk.
“I’ve always started my season strongly in Osaka so I hope this will be a good omen.”

from: beijing2008.cn

Six-year-old Lin Zhonghua, a quintuplet, expects to derive a lot of fun from the Beijing Olympic Games.
“It is not only a game for uncles and aunties (men and women), but also for us children,” she said.
The time for her and her four siblings to lap it all up arrives on Saturday, when the Olympic torch is relayed through the coastal special economic zone of Guangdong province.
Lin and her sister and three brothers will play Fuwa - the five mascots of the Games -during the opening ceremony of the Shantou leg.
They will share the stage with the first torchbearer Cai Yanshu - a world champion weightlifter who starts the 40-km, 11-hour relay.
“I am also part of the Games,” Lin said.
And the quintuplets could wait no longer for their limelight to come. “Every time they return home (from kindergarten), they talk about the rehearsals. They see themselves as real Fuwa,” said mother Lin Shaohua, referring to the cartoon figures who embody the characteristics of four of China’s most popular animals - the fish, the panda, the Tibetan antelope, the swallow - and the Olympic flame.
Born into a rural family from the village of Sangtian in Chaoyang district, Shantou, the quintuplets attend a bilingual kindergarten now teaching extra classes on Olympic basics.
“Special meals are served and they are asked to take more physical exercise,” said Li Shugai, head of the kindergarten, without elaborating.
“All these efforts are meant to ensure a successful performance. It is very lucky for the city to have the quintuplets to play Fuwa,” Li said.
The link between the quintuplets and the five Olympic rings goes far beyond the number five, she said.
“They are growing under the care and support from of a generous society, which reflects the Olympic spirit of friendship and harmony,” Li said.
The children each weighed little more than 1 kg at birth, and faced a battle just to survive.
“It was hard for a rural family to pay for the medical bills, but the hospital treated them for free,” Li said.
The Lin family received more than 100,000 yuan (14,280 U.S. dollars) in donations after the babies were released from hospital.
Two years later, they were accepted by Li’s kindergarten and not expected to pay school fees.
“When they first came here, they were much thinner than their peers. But now look at them,” Li said.
No doubt they will bring the cartoon figures to life.

from: xinhuanet.com

The greatest wish of many Chinese sports lovers is to get a ticket for the men’s 110 m hurdles final at the Beijing Olympic Games. The reason is simple: Liu Xiang is expected to defend his Olympic gold.
However, a ticket can be costly. Within an hour of the third round of domestic tickets going on sale on Monday, all tickets to the men’s 110 m hurdles event were sold out.
For the unlucky ones, a slim hope still exists online where some people want to sell their tickets for other events, but at a price.
A woman named Wang Xiao said online she wants to sell several tickets for the semifinals of the hurdles event. But wants 4,900 yuan ($700) for each ticket, more than six times the original price of 800 yuan.
Buyers will also be provided a limo pickup service from their door to the sports venue.
The woman said she has friends who are reselling their tickets at a huge profit.
“My tickets are selling very well. I have sold more than 100 tickets for different events of the Games,” she was quoted as saying by the Beijing Morning Post.
Advertisements for the sale of Olympic tickets can be easily found online. The price of tickets for some popular events such as the opening and closing ceremonies have soared to 100,000 yuan each.
Many Beijing residents said they were disappointed with the speculative reselling of tickets. It was unfair to genuine sports fans. In response, organizers of the Beijing Games said speculative reselling was a breach of the law.
According to a regulation of the Ministry of Public Security in 2006, speculation in tickets sales and other valuable coupons can lead to 10 to 15 days in detention and a fine of less than 1,000 yuan.
The tickets can be sold only once with the price no higher than the original one, officials said.
Tickets for the opening and closing ceremonies were sold to buyers with their ID number recorded, therefore it would be difficult to resell them. Those who managed to buy them would be taking a risk.
Some people who have no tickets are also advertising online to cheat buyers.
A total of 1.38 million tickets were put on sale in the third round for 16 events.
Each applicant is allowed to submit only one order for a maximum of two competitions with a limit of three tickets for each event.
“This gives everyone a fair chance,” Zhu Yan, the director of the Olympic ticketing center, said.
All tickets for events in Beijing and Hong Kong were sold out on Tuesday. Only a few tickets were available yesterday for some events in other cities such as Shanghai, Qingdao, Shenyang and Tianjin.

from: chinadaily.com.cn

Beijing Olympic and Paralympic torch relay theme song and two theme songs for the volunteer programs were unveiled Wednesday, the 100-day countdown to the Olympic Games, at Tai Miao at the Beijing Working People’s Culture Palace.
The trio songs, “Light the Passion, Share the Dream” “I am A star” and “Smile Beijing“, which jumped out from nearly 80,000 contested songs, were finally released at the Fourth Olympic Songs Contest on Wednesday evening.
The “Light the Passion, Share the Dream” for the Olympic torch relay, was composed by Chris Baobida and written by Huang Xiaomao, who compared the Olympic flame to the eternal starlight, symbolizing that people, led by the light, will be united to realize the dream of friendship, hope and harmony.
One of the theme songs for the volunteers — I am A Star – was created by famous Hong Kong music men Emil Chau and Lam Jik. Lam regards in his lyrics the volunteers to the bow and the wind, which are source of the power and success.
“It is the volunteers who are the real Olympic stars,” Chau said.
Another volunteer theme song “Smile Beijing” was created by Chen Ying, who works for the Beijing Olympic Volunteers Committee. Chen expressed his hope that everyone would remember the sentence “Volunteers’ smile is the best calling card for Beijing.”
This song was also carried to the space by China’s first lunar probe satellite Chang’e-1, which sent back the signal of the song on Dec. 4, 2007

from: xinhuanet.com