International   

On target for a perfect Olympics

BEIJING: With 100 days to go from Wednesday before the curtain rises on the 2008 Olympics, organisers are busy fine-tuning things for a perfect staging.

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 would experience a top class Games.

“There is every reason to believe that we will see here a gold-medal performance in August, also superb organisation 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 that the Games would 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 Mr. 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, hosted its first official event on April 18 — a race-walking meet.

Organisers said the final touches on the 91,000-seat National Stadium would not be complete until next month due to the extra work needed to prepare it for the opening ceremony on August 8. The iconic Olympic venue will also stage the closing ceremony and the athletics competitions.

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 aggressively tried to clean up its toxic haze. It has spent nearly $15 billion 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 per cent 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.

Highlighting the enthusiasm for the greatest show on Earth, more than one million persons were in the hunt for an Olympics volunteer’s post and training programmes are under way. The 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.

Organisers are closer to selecting an official theme song with 30 candidate songs expected to be released at a gala show later on Wednesday. — Xinhua

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Sharif-Zardari talks appear to make headway
Economic revolution next, say Maoists
Gillani: no compromise on Kashmiri cause
Only an apprehension: Sri Lankan A-G
Pakistan link to Karzai plot seen
On target for a perfect Olympics
7-month high U.S. troop toll in Iraq
Sydney BASE jumpers caught

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu