A giant clock started ticking Tuesday in Tiananmen Square, at the
very heart of the Chinese capital, counting down the days, hours
and minutes to the
Beijing 2008
Olympic Games, reported Wednesday's
China Daily.
With four years to go until the 29th Olympiad in Beijing, the
launch of the clock shows the official countdown for the games is
now under way.
The ceremony to present the timepiece by the Beijing Organizing
Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG) was simple yet
full of significance.
At 6PM, the countdown clock was jointly started by Liu Jingmin,
executive vice-president of the BOCOG, Wang Yifu, Athens Olympic
Games gold medalist, a Beijing resident Li Changxin, a middle
school student Wang Yu and Stephen Urquhart, President of
OMEGA.
At the same time, a countdown clock for the Beijing Games was
also placed in Qingdao, a coastal city in east China's Shandong
Province, the host city for the sailing events of the 2008
Games.
"The countdown clock for the Beijing games will be a new sight
in the city symbolizing the concept of a People's Olympics, and it
will also serve as a window to showcase Beijing," said Jiang
Xiaoyu, vice president of the BOCOG.
"The clock will witness the realization of China's century-long
Olympic dream and will add fresh impetus to the preparations for
the Olympic Games," he added.
(China Daily September 22, 2004)
