Beijing Olympics 2008

The number of foreign journalists received by the Beijing Olympic Media Center has increased eightfold in 2007, a senior official of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG) said on Friday.
Jiang Xiaoyu, BOCOG executive vice-president, disclosed this at the center’s 100th press conference, which also happened to be a weekly session of “Getting to Know.”
The function attracted over 70 journalists from more than 40 media organizations, including Reuters, CNN, AP and Kyodo News. Getting to Know is an unscripted, casual, face-to-face dialogue with a BOCOG department director; Jiang was the first BOCOG executive vice-president to chair the meeting.
Jiang told a packed room that across the 100 press conferences spokesmen from 297 Beijing municipal bureas and BOCOG had hosted 9,682 journalists from 5,539 Chinese and foreign media. Also, 2007 saw a 3.19 percent growth in the number of press conferences and a 3.78 percent increase in the number of attendants, compared with 2006.
Foreign journalists described the center’s press conference as their main source of information about Beijing and the Olympics.
Jiang said that in 2007, the center has received 3,806 overseas journalists in 580 visits, and has organized 60 press tours, half of which were attended by groups of over 100 members. As a key program, press briefings have been held on the Olympic preparations of the Chinese athletes, food safety and security arrangements for the Olympics, as well the preparatory work for the Paralympic Games. The total number of journalists received over the year has surged 8.37 times.

A packed press room with more than 70 journalists

from: beijing2008.cn 

On July 24, 2008, according to Qingdao news sources, the Olympic flame will pass by the Olympic Sailing Center in Qingdao. The city is a famous seaport and sailing resort in the eastern part of China.
Eight cities in Shangdong Province are on the Olympic torch relay route: Yantai, Weihai, Qingdao, Rizhao, Linyi, Jining, Tai’an, and Ji’nan. The torch is scheduled to arrive in Qingdao at 4:00 pm on July 23. At 8:30 am on July 24, a short launching ceremony will be held, followed by the official running at 9:00 am. At 2:00 pm the torch will be sent to Rizhao.
The 27.6 km route will be shared by a total of 138 torchbearers. 56 of these privileged people were selected by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the Chinese Olympic Committee, Olympic Games Partners and BOCOG.
The other 82 torchbearers will be made up of workers, farmers, students, athletes, people with disabilities, elite citizens and representatives of various circles of society through a selection system under the municipal government.
Eighteen people awarded national honors are already defined as torchbearer candidates, representing 22 percent of the total.
In order to showcase the city’s characteristics, the relay route is expected to pass through popular tourist spots, and include views of the sea and yachts, all while highlighting unique Qingdao industries.

The Olympic torch relay will start off on March 25 from Olympia, Greece and arrive in Beijing on August 8. On the day of its arrival, it will be used to light the main cauldron of the National Stadium, signaling the opening of the 29th Olympiad.

Night view of the Qingdao Olympic Sailing Center

from: beijing2008.cn 

China’s reigning 10,000m Olympic champion Xing Huina will fly to the US to get training under the famed China-born coach James Li, the USA Track and Field Coach of the Year, in a bid to get back on track before August’s Olympic Games.
Xing, who surprised the world by grabbing the Athens Olympic 10,000m gold in 2004, has been struggling with a knee injury and a lack of systematic training after her coach Wang Dexian was banned from coaching for life in 2005.
Wang suffered the suspension after another star long-distance student of his, Sun Yingjie, tested positive. Wang’s once-famous training camp has also been disbanded.
“After I left Wang, I have been training alone. Without systematic trainings and teammates around, it’s impossible to keep up a high-level performance,” said Xing, whose slumping form also cost her a spot in this year’s Osaka World Championships.
“There is not much time left for me. I hope I will get back to my best form under Li in the US.”
Li, who was born in Chengdu and naturalized as a US citizen in 1998, was named the USA Track and Field Coach of the Year after producing world 1,500m and 5,000m champion Bernard Lagat.
Lagat became the first man to win a 1,500m and 5,000m world championship double this year at Osaka, claiming the US’s first-ever 5,000m podium finish at the Worlds under Li’s guidance.
Head coach of China track and filed team Feng Shuyong also believes the training opportunities in the US will be of great help to Xing’s rehabilitation.
“She is now physically fit and her form is getting better day by day. So it’s the right time for us to send her there,” Feng said. “Li is a great coach. The weather conditions are also very comfortable right now. And besides, training with the high-level teammates will also be helpful.”
Feng said Xing should have learned lessons from her first session with Li early last year but she was not in the right mindset.
“She was too anxious to prove herself and did not control her training rhythm well last year. So she got injured soon after arriving in the US and did not benefit a lot during the training session.”

Xing and 110m hurdles world champion Liu Xiang won China the only two golds in the track and field at the Athens Games. They remain two of the best athletics medal hopefuls for 2008.
“We have emerging youngsters in 5,000m and 10,000m. But they lack international experience and are not consistent. If Xing could reach the Olympic standard, we will be more comprehensively competitive in Beijing.”
But Xing remained low-key about her prospects, saying she is not yet qualified to think about the Olympics.
“I dare not think about my Olympic chances. The most important thing for me is to start high-quality training as soon as possible and be competitive again in the following Olympic qualifying competitions.”

from: xinhuanet.com 

BEIJING, Dec. 20
China Central Television (CCTV), the country’s largest TV network, will change the name of the sports channel from CCTV-5 to the Olympic Channel from January 1 to September 30 next year.
The launch of the channel means the start of comprehensive coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, CCTV Vice-President Sun Yusheng said at a news conference on Friday.
The network hopes to use the opportunity of the Olympics to increase its international influence.

from: xinhuanet.com

When Beijing won the right to stage the 29th Olympiad, BOCOG promised to launch an Olympic education program among the 400 million primary and secondary school students in China.
That came true at the end of 2006, when 556 schools across the country were listed as model schools for Olympic education. With the “Heart-to-Heart” program, over 200 schools were linked to their partners all over the world.
With an Olympic focus added to their curriculums, teachers and students found their school life more interesting. At Beijing Yangfangdian Central Primary school, a teacher gave out a unique extra-curricular homework assignment: count the gold medals that China grabbed in the Athens Olympic Games and figure out that percentage in the total number of gold medals awarded during those Olympics. That’s not such a difficult question, but the assigning teacher needed to rack her brains before drafting her lesson plan.
To make a cup of muddy water clean is easy for Beijing Dongzhimen Middle School students. They used simple tools to filter the water. The experience gave the pupils food for thought: why not filter the used water at home and reuse it to save running water?
Such practice takes place almost daily in 200 model schools in China’s capital city. A curricular system incorporating the Olympic content has been formed.
As part of their Olympic education requirement, Beijing’s model schools have engaged in partnerships with schools recommended by the IOC affiliated Olympic Committees of 205 countries and regions in the world. So far 130 Chinese schools have found their counterparts, accounting for 62.2 percent of the total.
The program encourages the schools to conduct student-to-student communication and carry out a series of bilateral activities. In August, the host schools will greet their partner NOC athletic delegation at the Team Welcome Ceremony at the Olympic Village and support athletes at the competition sessions. Additionally, the corresponding delegation will also be invited to visit their partner schools in Beijing.
After visiting Beijing High School No. 4 in 2007, Minos Kyriakou, President of the Greek Olympic Committee, promised to invite 50 students to tour his country.
One more example: in praising the “Heart-to-Heart” program, the President of the Bulgarian State Agency for Youth and Sports, Vessela Letcheva, pledged to provide 1,300 sets of hats and sportswear bearing the signs of the Bulgarian athletic delegation to the students of Beijing High School No. 14 and hoped that they will cheer for the Bulgarian athletes during the Beijing Olympics.
In its latest issue, the IOC official publication “Olympic Review” described the “Heart-to-Heart” program as a “unique” activity spreading the Olympic values of excellence, friendship and respect among youth. The project is also an expression of the theme slogan of the Beijing Olympics — One World One Dream.

Photo credit: www.bjd.com.cn

The journal also commented that Beijing’s Olympic program is a massive campaign diffusing Olympic values into the vast areas of China.
BOCOG also impressed the IOC in other deeds: it has compiled Olympic textbooks and wall charts on the Olympics for students of primary and secondary schools, and established Olympic-themed columns or channels in newspapers, websites, and radio and TV stations.
The annual contests held by BOCOG have involved many school children in Olympic-themed photography, drawing, calligraphy, essay writing, artistic performances, foreign language skills and good manner demonstrations, leaving behind a brilliant tangible legacy.

from: beijing2008.cn

The airport at Tianjin, a city neighboring Beijing, has completed its largest expansion project to cater to the needs of next year’s Olympic Games, airport sources said on Tuesday.
The new terminal building was five times larger than the old one and was able to accommodate 10 million passenger arrivals and departures annually, the sources said.
More than 300,000 officials, athletes and visitors for next August’s Games were expected to travel via the airport. The expanded parts were scheduled to be operational in May.
The expansion, with a total investment of nearly 3 billion yuan (409.5 million U.S. dollars), started in August 2005, three years before the Games opened. It included a new 116,000-square-meter terminal building, a 270,000-square-meter apron and a 62,000-square-meter parking lot.
The runway was also widened to 75 meters from the current 50 meters and lengthened 400 meters to 3,600 meters.
After expansion, the airport would have a mail-handling capacity of 500,000 tons and could accommodate 200,000 flights annually.
Tianjin is about 120 kilometers southeast of the capital.
Track laying was completed on the intercity high-speed railway between Beijing and Tianjin last week. It would be put into use before the Games and shortened the journey between the two cities from the current 70 minutes to around 30 minutes.

from: xinhuanet.com 

A set of six stamps portraying Beijing’s main Olympic venues were issued by China Post on Thursday.
With a total face value of 8.6 yuan (about 1.2 U.S. dollars), the stamps feature the National Gymnasium, the China Agricultural University Gymnasium, the Beijing University Gymnasium, the Qingdao Olympic Sailing Center, the Laoshan Velodrome and the National Swimming Center, or the Water Cube.
A six-yuan commemorative cover sheet depicting the National Stadium, or the Bird’s Nest, was issued together with the stamps.
It is the fourth set of commemorative Olympic stamps China has issued since Beijing won the right to host the 2008 Games in July 2001.

Photo taken on Dec. 20, 2007 shows a commemorative cover sheet depicting the National Stadium, or the Bird’s Nest, in Beijing, China. A set of six stamps portraying Beijing’s main Olympic venues were issued by China Post on Thursday. The stamps feature the National Gymnasium, the China Agricultural University Gymnasium, the Beijing University Gymnasium, the Qingdao Olympic Sailing Center, the Laoshan Velodrome and the National Swimming Center, or the Water Cube. A commemorative cover sheet was issued together with the stamps. (Xinhua Photo) -  foto from: xinhuanet.com

from: xinhuanet.com

Hosting the Olympic Games means doing a lot more than building a few stadiums and subway lines, as Beijing has found out.
Keen to present its best face to the world during the prestigious sporting event, the city is racing against time to improve the behavior of local residents.
Citywide campaigns are under way to curb Beijingers’ bad habits such as queue-jumping, littering, using foul language and spitting in public.
“Hosting the Olympics is not only about building grand stadiums,” said Zheng Mojie, deputy director of Beijing’s Capital Ethics Development Office, the official etiquette watchdog.
“As tens of thousands of foreign visitors are expected to flood into China next summer, both China’s positive and negative sides will be amplified. So we must change those bad local habits,” she added. Millions of brochures were sent out to individuals to introduce a new code of conduct, while polishing courses are being offered to all civil servants and the people working in the service sector, such as cab drivers, shopping assistants, waiters and waitresses, and bus conductors.
The 11th of each month has been instituted as “Queuing Day”, because the date symbolizes an orderly line, when residents are told to stand in line to catch public transportation. In addition, people caught spitting in public face fines of up to 50 yuan (6.60U.S. dollars) and rude manners when watching sports competitions may incur a detention.
“We are happy that much progress is being made and our work has begun to pay off,” Zheng told Xinhua.
A survey released by the Renmin University of China found that in 2006, 4.95 percent of people still spat, down by 3.5 percentage points from 2005.
From November 2005 to November 2006, the poll covered 10,000 local residents and 1,000 foreigners who had lived in Beijing for more than two years. The survey team also gathered observations from 230,000 people at 320 public venues and 180,000 automobiles.
The survey revealed that the occurrence of littering in public had dropped from 9.1 percent in 2005 to 5.3 percent in 2006 and queue-jumping dropped from 9 percent to 6 percent.
The “civic index” of Beijing residents scored 69.06 in 2006, 3.85 points higher than 2005. The index takes into account public compliance with rules in public health and public order, attitudes towards strangers, etiquette in watching sports events and willingness to contribute to the Olympic Games.
“We expect the index to further rise for this year when the 2007 report is released,” Zheng said. However, the “civic index” still fails to meet the standard required for the 2008 Olympics, according to Sha Lianxiang, a professor at the Department of Sociology, Renmin University.
Zheng admitted that it’s an arduous mission to raise the level of civility of the whole society.
“There’s a saying that it takes three generations’ time to bring up a noble, so I cannot guarantee that impolite behavior will not be spotted in the city when the Olympics take place next August,” she said. “Our goal is to rebuild the majority people to be civilized.”

from: xinhuanet.com

With the Olympic year approaching, senior officials from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have given the thumbs-up to Beijing’s preparatory work and are eyeing well-organized Games next year.
“We are equally happy with 2007 as we were with 2006 and 2005 and previous years. All the work is on schedule,” said Hein Verbruggen, chairman of the IOC Coordination Commission for the Games.
“I’m happy I could come this time in December and see things are really moving in the right direction,” he said on the sidelines of a working meeting with the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG).
Verbruggen has approved of all the tests held this year to check the facilities and operations in Beijing and co-host cities.
“We heard the evaluation on test events this morning. They are all excellent. The reactions we got from international federations are very good,” Verbruggen told China Daily.
The crash of the online system when phase-II tickets’ sale began in October came as a shock to many, but for Verbruggen it was “almost a luxury problem”.
“The computer breakdown was a practical problem.” That so many people were surprised showed the huge demand for tickets. “For me, that’s almost a luxury problem.”
Verbruggen is optimistic of the preparations during the last few months before the Games, too. “I don’t wish anything else than a well-organized Games. It will be wonderful. I really hope the athletes will be happy when they leave China next August because they will have been able to perform to the best of their abilities, thanks to the good work carried out by the Games organizers.
“The same goes for the rest of the Olympic family and spectators. Many people will see the country for the first time and hopefully they will be happy with what they see and will want to come back and see more.
“I think that we and BOCOG are doing our utmost to make the Games a big success. I hope that we will achieve our goal.”

from: xinhuanet.com

Hosting the Olympic Games means doing a lot more than building a few stadiums and subway lines, as Beijing has found out.
Keen to present its best face to the world during the prestigious sporting event, the city is racing against time to improve the behavior of local residents. Citywide campaigns are under way to curb Beijingers’ bad habits such as queue-jumping, littering, using foul language and spitting in public.
“Hosting the Olympics is not only about building grand stadiums,” said Zheng Mojie, deputy director of Beijing’s Capital Ethics Development Office, the official etiquette watchdog.
“As tens of thousands of foreign visitors are expected to flood into China next summer, both China’s positive and negative sides will be amplified. So we must change those bad local habits,” she added. Millions of brochures were sent out to individuals to introduce a new code of conduct, while polishing courses are being offered to all civil servants and the people working in the service sector, such as cab drivers, shopping assistants, waiters and waitresses, and bus conductors.
The 11th of each month has been instituted as “Queuing Day”, because the date symbolizes an orderly line, when residents are told to stand in line to catch public transportation. In addition, people caught spitting in public face fines of up to 50 yuan (6.60U.S. dollars) and rude manners when watching sports competitions may incur a detention.
“We are happy that much progress is being made and our work has begun to pay off,” Zheng told Xinhua.
A survey released by the Renmin University of China found that in 2006, 4.95 percent of people still spat, down by 3.5 percentage points from 2005.
From November 2005 to November 2006, the poll covered 10,000 local residents and 1,000 foreigners who had lived in Beijing for more than two years. The survey team also gathered observations from 230,000 people at 320 public venues and 180,000 automobiles. The survey revealed that the occurrence of littering in public had dropped from 9.1 percent in 2005 to 5.3 percent in 2006 and queue-jumping dropped from 9 percent to 6 percent.
The “civic index” of Beijing residents scored 69.06 in 2006, 3.85 points higher than 2005. The index takes into account public compliance with rules in public health and public order, attitudes towards strangers, etiquette in watching sports events and willingness to contribute to the Olympic Games.
“We expect the index to further rise for this year when the 2007 report is released,” Zheng said.
However, the “civic index” still fails to meet the standard required for the 2008 Olympics, according to Sha Lianxiang, a professor at the Department of Sociology, Renmin University.
Zheng admitted that it’s an arduous mission to raise the level of civility of the whole society.
“There’s a saying that it takes three generations’ time to bring up a noble, so I cannot guarantee that impolite behavior will not be spotted in the city when the Olympics take place next August,” she said.
“Our goal is to rebuild the majority people to be civilized.”

from: xinhuanet.com