Beijing Olympics 2008

The empty seats that hurt the festive mood of the Athens Olympics won’t be seen in Beijing when the Chinese capital hosts the 2008 Games.
The final batch of Olympic tickets for domestic spectators, previously expected to be sold out in 36 days, had been snapped up within two days.
A total of 1.38 million tickets for 16 sports, including boxing, soccer, volleyball and basketball, had been put on sale since last Monday both at Bank of China branches and on the official website.
Within two days, tickets for Beijing venues were sold out, only leaving some for the soccer tournament in co-host cities Shanghai, Shenyang, Tianjin and Qinhuangdao.
An official with the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG) admitted that they had never expected these tickets to sell so fast.
People all over the country showed great enthusiasm in snapping up Olympic tickets. Thousands of people lined in long queues and waited outside Bank of China outlets.
A Beijing resident surnamed Liu said he had waited for four hours before getting tickets from the bank counter.
“I bought tickets for track and field finals. I want to see Liu Xiang racing in the final,” he said, referring to the Chinese Olympic champion and world record holder of 110 meters hurdles.
Wang Xudong, who purchased three tickets for women’s soccer preliminary games, said it was a regret that he had not got the tickets for some hot games.
“Lucky for me that I have bought a ticket for the Olympics’ opening ceremony and a few semifinal tickets,” said Andy Lau, one of Chinese cinema’s biggest stars, after he ran as the fourth torchbearer in the Hong Kong leg on May 2.
“But I feel a bit disappointed that I didn’t have tickets for volleyball and diving, which are my favorite sports,” he said.
“I finally get a ticket and my dream to watch the Beijing Olympic Games will come true,” said Qu Zhen, a Tibetan University university student, on the day when the tickets started to sell in Lhasa.
The online ticket sales went smoothly except for some small problems.
“We have made sufficient preparations for this time, including the tests of our network, our credit card operation and our system of the acceptance of purchase applications,” said Xu Zheng, director of Olympic Affairs Office of Bank of China.
“The preparation work was done in a very careful way because we had lessons to learn from last year’s experience.”
The online system collapsed due to overwhelming demand hours after the second round of sales started last November, forcing organizers to revert to a lottery system.
“Through the ticket sales, we feel once again the passion of all the people home and abroad and their support for the Olympic Games,” said Wang Hui, director of the media and communications department of the BOCOG.
However, the third and final round sale did not mean all the tickets had been sold out, said Wang. It just meant the ticket booking had ended, and people who had not got the tickets still had chance, she added.
After three rounds of ticket sales, some tickets will likely be available at ticket booths around sports venues during the Games, said an official from the ticketing department of the BOCOG.

from: chinadaily.com.cn

Attendance and torchbearers of torch relay in each of the next 98 legs across China will dedicate one minute of silence to the lives lost in the massive earthquake in southwest China, the Beijing Games organizers decided Tuesday night.
The local organizers in Jiangxi, where the cites of Ruijin, Jinggangshan and Nanchang are scheduled to carry on the sacred flame from Wednesday, decided Tuesday to cut all festive performances at the launching and closing ceremonies. Torchbearers may also wear black ribbons and charity boxes will be set up at the starting and finishing points.
Olympic venues across Beijing were not damaged by the quake, said builders at several venues, including the Bird’s Nest, the Water Cube, the Workers’ Indoor Gymnasium and the Wukesong venue cluster. State Seismological Bureau recorded a 3.9 magnitude tremor in Tongzhou District in east Beijing Monday afternoon.
“We are highly concerned with the situation, and we sent our deep condolences to the lives lost in the massive disaster,” Li Zhanjun, director of the Olympic media center, told reporters yesterday morning.
“BOCOG is closely watching the situation of the quake and maintaining the process,” he said. “If the disaster does not worsen, there is no plan to change any relay route in the following days.”
Beijing newspapers quoted Zhang Ming, the director of the BOCOG torch relay center, saying her center will decide whether to launch a contingency plan after investigations of earthquake damages finish.

from: chinadaily.com.cn

Beijing is using the carrot of huge rewards to enlist citizens to report Olympic logo infringement cases in the run-up to the Games.

A person who steps forward with information will be rewarded with five percent of what lawbreakers are fined, according to a regulation jointly issued by the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Industry and Commerce and the Legal Affairs Department of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games.

The largest rewards will be 100,000 yuan (US$14,286), the regulation said.

The drive was launched to step up crackdown on infringement upon the copyrights of Olympic logos, such as manufacturing and using — without authorization — the official Mascots of the Beijing Games, the “Fuwas”, and the emblems for the Beijing Olympics and Paralympics Games, Beijing’s Olympic slogan and the symbol of the Olympic torch relay.

Last year, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Industry and Commerce dealth with 95 such infringement cases and imposed 1.03 million yuan (US$147,143) in fines.

The trademark logos are owned by the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games, and only authorized companies are allowed to manufacture products bearing the logos.

from: chinadaily.com.cn

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

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