Beijing Olympics 2008

With 100 days to go from Wednesday before the curtain rises on the 2008 Olympic Games, the organizers are busy fine-tuning for perfect staging of the world’s sporting spectacle.
Construction of venues, easing the city’s traffic congestion and efforts to clean up the air are all on target for the August 8-24 event, and International Olympic Committee officials have repeatedly voiced confidence that the athletes were going to experience a top class Games here this summer.
“There is every reason to believe that we will see here a gold-medal performance in August, also superb organization of the Olympic Games,” Hein Verbruggen, chairman of the IOC’s coordination commission for the Beijing Games, told reporters this month after his last inspection visit to the Chinese capital.
IOC president Jacques Rogge also predicted the Beijing Games to be a “great success”.
“Here and there are small details to be fine-tuned but I am saying that the level of preparedness … is really excellent and … I am optimistic that the Games will be a great success,” said Rogge.
The smooth construction of Olympic venues is a major source of confidence.
The National Stadium, known as the Bird’s Nest for its giant latticework structure of metal girders, opened and hosted its first official event on April 18 - a race-walking meet, putting an end to the city’s massive construction campaign that kicked off in December 2003.
Organizers said that the final touches on the 91,000-seat National Stadium won’t be complete until next month due to the extra work needed to prepare it for the August 8 opening ceremony. The iconic Olympic venue will also stage the closing ceremony and the athletics competitions.
The nearby National Aquatics Center, known as the Water Cube, was completed in January and hosted its first test event in February - the China Open swimming competition. The box-like venue with three pools below ground level is made up of a steel skeleton sheathed in a Teflon-like plastic membrance that mimics bubbling water.
Fears about risks of competing outdoors in Beijing are dwindling amid the continual improvement of the air quality. According to the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau, the city notched up 67 “blue sky days” from January to the end of March, 12 more than the same period a year earlier and the highest in nine years.
Since being awarded the 2008 Games seven years ago, Beijing has engaged in an aggressive effort to clean up its toxic haze. The city has spent nearly more than 15 billion U.S. dollars on anti-pollution measures such as moving factories, adding subway lines, upgrading boilers and converting coal-heated homes to electric.
The authorities plan to close factories and force 19 heavy polluters to reduce emissions by 30 percent for the two months around the Olympics and Paralympics, and measures to limit factory emission are also in place for areas surrounding the capital, including the city of Tianjin, the provinces of Hebei, Shanxi and Shandong, and the Inner Mongolia region.
Based on a study released last month by IOC’s medical commission, Rogge said that the health of the athletes is “absolutely not in any danger” during Games time.
Officials are also confident about bringing traffic congestion under control with a ban on some cars during the Olympics and a plan to set up special lanes on key roads that link competition sites with the athletes’ village, the media village and training venues.
“Private vehicles, excluding taxis, will be ordered to stay off roads every other day in accordance with the even and odd numbers on the licence plates,” Beijing’s vice mayor Ji Lin said last month.
“The government is working on a compensation scheme for car owners and we will announce it later,” he added.
Highlighting the public’s enthusiasm for the greatest show on Earth, more than one million people were in the hunt for an Olympics volunteer’s post and training programs are well under way.
Third phase of the domestic ticket sales will start on May 5, with large crowds expected to chase the remaining 1.38 million tickets for 16 sports including volleyball, athletics, boxing and football.
Zhu Yan, director of the Olympic ticketing center, promised that there will be no repeat of the meltdown of the booking system that marred the previous round of sales.
“We have confidence in the system because our ticketing sponsor has increased the system’s capacity by folds,” he said. “Nonetheless, I hope that the public won’t be hasty to buy tickets.”
Demand is excessive outside the Chinese mainland, too. “The main pressure at the moment is that many National Olympic Committees continue to ask for more tickets,” said Zhu. “We are trying to dig out resources for tickets to satisfy the demand worldwide.”
Of the 6.8 million Olympic tickets available for sale, about 75 percent are reserved for the domestic public, with the rest going overseas.
The organizers are closer to selecting an official theme song with 30 candidate songs expected to be released at a gala show later on Wednesday.
“The final choice (of the theme song) is up to the BOCOG executive board,” said Zhao Dongming, head of the BOCOG’s cultural activities department.
Last, but not least, various campaigns aimed at improving the behavior of local citizens finally bore fruits. More and more people are getting to abandon old habits like spitting in public, jumping ahead in line and littering.
A survey released by Renmin University of China in February found that in 2007, 2.54 percent of people still spat, roughly a half of the figure for 2006, and the occurrence of littering in public dropped from 5.3 percent in 2006 to 2.86 percent in 2007 and queue-jumping from 6 percent to 1.5 percent.

from: chinadaily.com.cn

French President Nicholas Sarkozy on Monday invited disabled Chinese torchbearer Jin Jing - who has become a national celebrity for defending the Olympic torch from Tibet secessionists during the Paris leg of its relay - to visit France again “to make up for the pain you have suffered”.
Sarkozy’s invitation was delivered in a letter presented to Jin by French Senate President Christian Poncelet soon after he arrived in Shanghai for a week-long visit to China.
“I would like to express to you my shock at the way you were attacked in Paris on April 7 when you were holding the Olympic flame. You showed outstanding courage, which honors you, and your country,” Sarkozy was quoted as saying in the letter.
“To make up for the pain you have suffered, I sincerely invite you to France in the near future as my friend and a friend of the French people.”
Jin has been dubbed the “Smiling Angel in a Wheelchair” after protecting the torch while a Tibetan separatist tried to wrest it from her during the relay in the French capital.
Sarkozy said he once again expresses “strong condemnation of such despicable action”.
“What happened in Paris has engendered a feeling of bitterness in your country. I want to assure you that the incidents that were brought about by a few people on that sad day don’t reflect the feelings of my fellow countrymen for the Chinese people,” the letter says.
The message came at a time when anti-France sentiment is running high among the Chinese after the torch’s travails in Paris.
Some have called for a boycott of retail giant Carrefour in response to media reports that it supports the Dalai group.
In an interview published in Journal du Dimanche, Carrefour Chief Executive Jose Luis Duran denied the allegation and said his company was “taking the situation very seriously”.
Sarkozy’s letter to Jin suggests France is returning to rationality, Chinese analysts said.
“Sarkozy needs to weigh the stability of the strategic partnership between the two countries,” said Professor Zhao Junjie at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, adding Chinese people’s resentment appeared to have found resonance with the French leader.
He also called on the Chinese to be rational when expressing anger toward France.
“They should bear in mind that jeopardizing relations with France is not in our national interest,” Zhao said.
More French officials will seek to soothe Chinese sentiment soon.
Former prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin will arrive tomorrow to meet Premier Wen Jiabao, and Sarkozy’s diplomatic adviser Jean-David Levitte will come to China at the end of the week.

from: chinadaily.com.cn

KUALA LUMPUR - The sacred flame of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games on early Sunday arrived in the Malaysia capital of Kuala Lumpur, the 13th leg of its global torch relay.
A chartered plane carrying the flame, which was ignited on March 24 in ancient Olympia of Greece, landed on the Kuala Lumpur international airport at local time 02:30 a.m. local time (1830GMT) from Bangkok, capital of Thailand.
Jiang Xiaoyu, vice president of the Beijing Organizing Committee of Olympic Games (BOCOG), carried the lantern of the flame and walked off the plane.

Upon arrival at the airport, Jiang and the flame received a warm welcome by a cheering crowd, among whom are Deputy president of the Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) M. Jegathesan and OCM honorary secretary Sieh Kok Chi.
Chinese ambassador to Malaysia Cheng Yonghua also came to the airport to welcome the flame of the Beijing Olympics, which is scheduled to be held this August.
The Kuala Lumpur leg of the torch relay, which will be started from Dataran Merdeka and concluded at the famous “Twins Tower” KLCC, will start on Monday afternoon. Eighty torch bearers will take part in the relay.
The Olympic global torch relay will cover 137,000 kilometers before the flame returns to Beijing.

from: chinadaily.com.cn

NEW DELHI - Seventy torchbearers are set to carry the Beijing Olympic flame here on Thursday for the 11th leg of its global journey.
The 70 torchbearers will cover a distance of just 2.5 kilometers from Rashtrapati Bhavan to India Gate starting from the 4 p.m. local time.
The torchbearers include sportspersons, Bollywood stars and politicians, according to Suresh Kalmadi, the president of Indian Olympic Committee.
The country’s top current and former athletes, including sprint stars Anju Bobby George, PT Usha, ace tennis star Leander Paes, shooters Manavjit Singh and Abhinav Bindra, boxer Akhil Kumar and hockey player Dhanraj Pillay, will be part of the run.
Actors Saif Ali Khan, Amir Khan, Sagarika Ghatge of “Chak De India” fame and Sarod player Ayan Ali Khan will also be seen in action.
Sachin Tendulkar, who was supposed to carry the flames, has pulled out at the last minute.
“He is not well and he has also an Indian Premier League captain’s meeting to attend. But he has shown his solidarity for the Olympic movement,” Kalmadi said on Wednesday.
Out of 70 torchbearers, 47 have been chosen by India and five by the BOCOG, the Beijing Organizing Committee of Olympic Games, while Olympic presenting partners have selected 19 runners.
Kalmadi expects for a great relay in New Dehli. “The entire world is looking to India and the expectation is that the torch relay will be one of the greatest shows here,” said Kalmadi.
“We are hopeful that we will be able to live up to the expectations of the world community.”
“We do not want to see a repeat of what happened in Paris and London. It is a sacred torch and its safety is our responsibility,” Kalmadi told a press conference.
“We are not afraid of any movement. They can have the movement anywhere else. We just want the torch relay to be safe. The safety of the torch is our responsibility and we are hopeful that the relay will go on well without any disruption,” added he.

from: xinhuanet.com

International journalists were given a rare opportunity to meet and chat with some of China’s Olympic athletes at the weekend to see how they are preparing for this summer’s Games.
The media center of the body organizing the Beijing Games arranged a visit to the training camps of the judo, wrestling, tennis and field hockey teams at the Olympic Sports Center, just south of the Bird’s Nest.
Tennis star and Grand Slam champion Zheng Jie and judo world champion Tong Wen were among the athletes answering questions from the group of about 200 international journalists.
“Can each of you tell us something fun during your training,” Mei Fong of the Wall Street Journal asked a group of five Olympians during the Q&A session.
“Apart from my normal training, I also enjoy KTV, shopping and blogging,” said 24-year-old Zheng Jie, who will team up with 23-year-old Yan Zi for the women’s tennis doubles.
“I like shopping,” Tong Wen, the women’s judo star, said. The 180-cm, 128-kg prospect is favored to dominate the over-78 kg category this summer.
“Tong Wen is being modest,” Zhang Haifeng, director of media relations with the general administration of sports, which organized the event, said.
“As far as I’m concerned, she also loves to dance.”
Many of the journalists were eager to hear about the gold medal prospects of the home team, but their curiosity also ranged from athletes’ diets to gold medal bonuses.
Journalists from the ABC television network and Japan’s Asahi news were among the media called on to query athletes and senior sports officials, which included China’s deputy sports chief Cui Dalin.
Astrid Freyeisen, a German journalist, said she was happy to have an opportunity to talk to the team leaders and coaches of the tennis and handball teams. She said she was curious about the selection process, training and personal lives of the athletes.
“It is very different how you choose Olympic teams in the West. That’s always very interesting to hear how you do it in China,” the Chinese correspondent of ARD Radio of Germany said.
“That’s what I want to tell my audience.”
She said she hoped journalists will be given more time with athletes in the future.
The event was the second time international journalists have been given access to the Olympic teams in training.
In November, more than 90 international journalists were given permission to visit the training camps of the gymnastics, diving and table tennis teams, as well as the opportunity to talk with members of the weightlifting, swimming and synchronized swimming squads.

from: chinadaily.com.cn