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With 50 days to go till the start of the Beijing Olympics, Beijing is presenting the world with many new features.
The Olympic Village’s accommodation team has seen 2,700 employees and close to 5,000 volunteers on their work positions.
The first group of overseas volunteers from Iowa University in the United States, is scheduled to arrive in Beijing in two days.
Athletes across the world are busy getting ready and China’s biggest ever Olympic contingent is doing the same.
“Every countdown day is worth celebrating, as we are seeing more and more visitors coming to Beijing,” says Liu Zhenyu, a 71- year-old Beijinger who will share his unique diabolo-tossing skills with foreign visitors during the Olympics.
The 660,000-square-meter Olympic Village, which will serve as home for 16,000 athletes from 205 countries and regions and 7,000 media members, is gearing up to open on July 27.
“Taking into account the number of clients that will be living in the 64 buildings and 17,470 rooms in the Village, our services will be as vast as the services offered by 108 hotels at the same time,” the Beijing Daily quoted Vice Director of BOCOG’s Olympic Village Department Yu Debin as saying.
“Our clients will enjoy lots of personalized services, such as welcome cards, birthday cards and contact cards, as well as multi-lingual services,” he said.
Final steps to polish up venues
The Shunyi Olympic Rowing-Canoeing Park has a three-km-long water course. Its venue operation team needs to collect data on the course every day by biking back and forth several times. “Although we have made detailed preparations, the remaining 50 days seem like a short timeframe to fulfill our task,” said Zhang Xiangdong, the team’s vice director.
To minimize the impact of indoor air movement on athletes’ performances, the Olympic badminton venue at Beijing University of Technology Gymnasium has found the best resolution: Increase the volume of low-temperature air two hours before the competition to lower the room temperature and release enough air to disperse heat from the light and athlete’s movement during the game. Repeated rehearsals have given positive results.
The northern area of the Olympic Green will hold Olympic Archery, Tennis and Hockey events over six days, when a number of staff members will be involved in the operations of three events. They have found the best way to avoid redundant work through rehearsals.
Volunteers ready to offer smiles and good services
The smiles of volunteers serving at Capital International Airport will be a constant part of the scene there through the end of the Paralympics on September 17. The volunteers’ duties require a 24-hour work schedule in order to greet visitors as they arrive and depart. They will also help with luggage, visas, ticketing, transport and other procedures in the airport’s three terminals.
In fact, the airport team has worked for more than one year, beginning with the “Good Luck Beijing” pre-Games events in early June 2007. A total of 1,474 volunteers have offered services for 42 events, greeting 26,000 passengers on over 4,000 flights, said Wang Na, manager of airport volunteers.
“The smiles of volunteers at the airport give international visitors their first impression of China. We will do more training and rehearsals before the bulk of visitors come for the Olympic and Paralympics,” Wang said.
The 24 media operations volunteers scheduled to arrive this weekend from Iowa University will take part in a week of training at Tsinghua University to enhance their knowledge of Chinese culture. The rest of the 292-member overseas volunteer media operations team in the Olympic News Service (ONS) program are to follow them shortly. The team will meet the media’s needs on various competition venues, the Main Press Center and the International Broadcast Center.
Competent Olympians eye best results in Beijing
As the top powerhouse, the United States will send a 2,000-member team to the Beijing Olympics, the biggest team ever in the history of U.S. participation. The athletes will compete in 27 of the 28 sports for the upcoming Olympics.
The U.S. team dominates in swimming, athletics and other sports and has the potential to vie for gold in gymnastics, wrestling, softball and basketball. To avoid a similar fate of the men’s basketball bronze medal in the Athens Olympics, glittering stars like Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Dwayne Wade will be a part of the U.S. team for Beijing.
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) team also cherishes dreams of their best performances in women’s football and judo events. The Atlanta Olympic judo champion Kye Sun Hui won bronze and silver medals in Sydney and Athens, respectively. Doubtless, her dream is to bag another medal in Beijing, this time a gold one. “The next medal will be the most precious for me,” she told the press recently.
To avoid interruptions, some teams are engaging in “secret training.” The Kenyan Athletics Association declined press interviews from their training camp somewhere in western Kenya.
Stimulus policies have been mooted in some countries. But word has leaked that Romania may give the highest ever bonuses to Olympic gold medalists this summer.
Cyprus,Afghanistan and many other countries strive to end their Olympic medal drought through the Games in Beijing. Philippine boxers endeavor to win their country the first Olympic gold medal.
Finland’s media reported that although Finnish athletes are not very much hopeful in the coming Olympics, the local people are enthusiastic about watching the Games in Beijing. All 10,000 Olympic tickets allocated for Finland have sold out.
Host country to field the largest team
China has had over 500 athletes qualify for the Olympics. It is estimated that the team could expand to 550-570 members and create a record in terms of the number of participating athletes and the number of sports.
On June 17, the Chinese table tennis squad, one of “the top six” Olympic teams in the world, announced its Olympic lineup, the first among participating teams. Chinese divers and shooters are involved in closed training. Starting June 20, China’s women’s volleyball team will bring Zhao Ruirui, Feng Kun and other players to the 2008 Grand Prix to get familiar with competitors from around the world in preparation for the Olympics. The Chinese men’s basketball team is warming up, too. Yi Jianlian and Wang Zhizhi are home and Yao Ming is expected to be back in late June.
Chinese athletics fans are still pinning their hopes on hurdler Liu Xiang, who is making final preparations.
The Olympics will see more top Chinese athletes on stage. They include diver Guo Jingjing, table tennis player Wang Hao, badminton player Lin Dan,shooters Zhu Qinan and Du Li, taekwondo athlete Chen Zhong. Like their peers from other countries and regions, they are eyeing the top platform on the victory podium.
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