Beijing Olympics 2008

A ticketing staff displays sample tickets for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing April 23, 2008. The tickets, with the “lucky cloud” and the Bird’s Nest designs will go on sale for the third round starting from May 5.
A total of 1.38 million tickets will be put on sale for 16 sports, including athletics, boxing, basketball, and soccer. Each individual buyer is allowed to purchase no more than six tickets - three tickets each for two sports sessions.
Chinese residents also have the possibility of buying six more tickets.
“If you order six tickets on the first day of this (third) round, you can buy more tickets several days later as long as you have paid the former six tickets,” explained Zhu Yan, the ticketing director of BOCOG.
Ticket will be sold on a “first come, first served” basis at Bank of China outlets and on the official ticketing website.
“There are roughly 100 days to go before the Games open. We don’t have enough time for a lottery draw,” said Zhu.
He promised the meltdown of the booking system, which disrupted the earlier round of ticket sales would not happen again.
“I have confidence in the system because the ticketing sponsors have made a lot of improvements,” he said.
The design for the tickets was also unveiled on Wednesday. It has drawn on the National Stadium, known as the Bird’s Nest, and the lucky cloud as the main visual elements, said Zhu.
“We have adopted a series of anti-counterfeiting technologies in the process of designing the tickets. It is almost impossible to create fake tickets,” he said.

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Overseas media reports that foreign students in China would have to leave the country during the August Olympic Games were “totally fabricated”, the Ministry of Education said here Friday.
“Recently, some foreign media say China requires foreign students to leave during the Games. It completely goes against the facts,” ministry spokesman Wang Xuming said.
Relevant departments and universities “have never asked foreign students to leave China during the Olympics and Paralympics. During that time, foreign students could stay and some of them would join volunteer services”.
He added international cooperation and exchanges in the educational field would proceed as usual, including accepting foreign students who would come to study in China.
Official statistics show China attracted more than 162,000 students from 185 countries and regions in 2006, triple that of 2000.
Foreign students entered more than 500 universities and higher education institutes and their research topics covered almost all academic subjects available in China.

from: xinhuanet.com

Government leaders and scholars around the world have voiced their support for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, condemning deeds of disrupting the Olympic torch relay and saying the sabotage attempts are doomed to fail.
Ukraine’s former president Leonid Kravchuk said in Kiev on Tuesday that the Olympics is a great sports party for the whole world and is also an arena of friendly exchanges.
“Tibet is an inalienable part of China, and any attempt to sabotage the Beijing Olympic Games by using the Tibet issue violates the Olympic spirit and the will of people around the world,” Kravchuk said.
Dao Duy Quat, vice director of Vietnam’s Communist Party Central Commission on Ideology and Culture, said that any attempt to obstruct the Olympic Games violates the Olympic spirit and runs against the common aspiration of the whole world for peace and progress.
He said that Vietnam has been doing everything to ensure the Olympic torch relay in Ho Chi Minh City a success.
Latvian Parliament member Ivan Klementev, who won a gold medal in the Seoul Olympics in 1988 and also a two-time Olympic silver medallist, said in an interview with Xinhua that the Olympics is not held for politicians and government officials, but a festival for the athletes who have made preparations for four years.
The attempts by some politicians to politicize the Games and to boycott the event will never bring any positive results and the Beijing Olympics will definitely turn out as a great success, Klementev said.
Cuba strongly opposes any attempt to sabotage the Beijing Olympics, Cuba’s official newspapers cited Ricardo Alarcon, president of the National Assembly of People’s Power, the country’s legislature, as saying.
No matter how many times a lie is repeated, the fact can not be changed that Tibet has been a part of China, Alarcon said.
Phil Goff, New Zealand trade minister, said as the 2008 Olympics is drawing near, more attention should be focused on the athletes and the international community should work together to make the event a success.
In an article published in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, Susan Brownell, an anthropologist at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, was quoted as saying that China will not only put up a good Olympics but is a worthy host in the best tradition of the Games.
U.S. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley also criticized on Sunday the call by some countries to boycott the Beijing Olympics.

from: xinhuanet.com

Beijing will host the largest yet Olympic cultural festival around August’s Games, attracting thousands of performers to participate, said an official of the Beijing organizing committee Tuesday.
Nearly 300 art teams both home and abroad will perform from June 23 to September 17 at the Sixth Olympic Cultural Festival, said Zhao Dongming, director of cultural activities department of the Beijing Organizing Committee of Olympic Games.
“I believe it will be the most diversified one in the Olympic history.” Zhao said, “It will be a chance for cultural integration between China and the rest of the world.”
British soprano Sarah Brightman, who sang Amigos Para Siempre (Friends of Life) at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, will perform.
Italian violinist Salvatore Accardo, the Russian National Ballet Theatre, as well as an Irish Riverdance team, will also take part, he said.
China has been holding Olympic cultural festivals in Beijing since 2003. These included sports film showings, song competitions and exhibitions around the city.

from: chinadaily.com.cn

A Beijing Olympic official on Sunday strongly criticized the attempt by some “pro-Tibet independence” activists to sabotage the torch relay event in London, as an obvious act of defying the Olympic spirit.
A spokesman from the torch relay center of the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee said that as the highest symbol of the Olympic spirit, the Olympic flame represents peace, friendship and progress. Under the authorization of the International Olympic Committee, the Beijing Olympic torch relay is taking its journey of harmony throughout the world, sharing the passion and glory of the Olympics with the world, and has received warm welcome from the people en route.
However, a few “pro-Tibet independence” activists attempted to sabotage the torch relay in London today, which is a serious violation of the Olympic spirit, as the Olympic flame belongs to the world, the spokesman said. The act will surely arouse the resentment of the peace-loving people, and is bound to fail, he added.

Local policeman clashes with a protester (bottom) during the Olympic torch relay in London, April 6, 2008.
A few “pro-Tibet independence” activists tried to sabotage the torch relay, stirring clashes with British police.
At least 25 people were arrested. (Xinhua/Qi Heng)

London welcomes the Beijing Olympic flame on Sunday as part of the global Olympic Torch Relay in the run-up to the Beijing Olympic Games. As a grand festival in London, tens of thousands of people lined the route of the relay to cheer the event, far outnumbering the protesters.
Yet some protesters tried to sabotage the torch relay, by trying to grab the torch or extinguish it, stirring clashes with British police. At least 25 people were arrested.
The torch is traveling through ten London boroughs from Wembley in the west to Greenwich in east London, with each borough marking its arrival with entertainment and local events, bringing London’s color and vibrancy to life while showcasing the capital’s famous landmarks.

from: xinhuanet.com