The 16-day Athens Games came to an end on Sunday,  the focus of the world will gradually shift to Beijing, the host city of the next Olympics.

China ranked second in the gold medal standings and third in the overall medal haul, with 32 golds, 17 silvers and 14 bronzes. Clearly it is one of the leading sports powers in the world. But it has yet to prove its prowess in hosting the world's largest sporting event.

The Athens Olympics provided the organizers of the 2008 Games with many valuable lessons and a great deal of food for thought.

As Beijing hopes to use the Games as a lens for the world to view China's historical heritage, the Athens Games set a good example in combining Greek cultural and historical highlights with the sports extravaganza.

The shot put competition, for example, took place in the Ancient Olympia Stadium. The elegant Panathinaiko Stadium, where the first modern Olympic Games were held in 1896, hosted the archery events and become the finish for the men's marathon, the last event of the Games.

"These are unique Olympic experiences," said Liu Qi, president of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG).

BOCOG Vice President Jiang Xiaoyu said that the opening ceremony of the Athens Games, which won wide acclaim for its evocative tableau of 3,000 years of Greek history and culture, would serve as inspiration for Beijing. The Athens opener registered a new record in international TV viewing according to the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Liu, who headed a BOCOG inspection team visiting the Athens Games, also spoke highly of the city's development, saying, "Athens has done an excellent job in upgrading its infrastructure over the past several years."

Construction of a subway and other rail links were given high priority. A new airport was built in 2001, replacing the old seaside airfield, while a brand-new highway around the city turned an hour-long stop-and-go trip into a 15-minute breeze.

With more than 1,000 extra cars hitting the Beijing streets every day and a forecast of 3.5 million vehicles in the city by 2008, traffic is considered one of the biggest challenges Beijing will face during its 17-day Olympics.

Traffic restrictions, including lanes reserved for a large fleet of Olympic Family vehicles and reserved parking for authorized vehicles only near stadiums played an important role in the smooth operations of the Athens Olympics.

But the high cost of the Athens Olympics demonstrates that Beijing must carefully monitor its budget.

Greece is the smallest country to stage the Olympics since Finland in 1952. Athens struggled with construction delays and organizing blunders, falling behind schedule and even alarming the IOC into warning it that it was risking the loss of hosting rights.

Although Greece managed a turnaround and got everything ready before the start of the Games, the rising costs for venues and infrastructure projects, mainly due to double and triple shifts to make up for lost time, and a soaring security budget, drove total spending up to at least 7 billion euros, according to the Greek government. The initial budget in 1997 was about 3.5 billion euros.

Keeping the principle of frugality in mind, earlier this month Beijing organizers suspended construction on several Olympic venues, including the state-of-the-art National Stadium.

"We halted construction mainly in order to optimize our design so that we can save on costs," BOCOG's Executive Vice President Liu Jingmin said at a recent press conference. "But the new design will not affect the basic functions of the stadium."

Hopes for hosting the best Olympics ever have run high throughout China since Beijing won its bid for the 2008 Games on July 13, 2001. But staging the Games is a far more daunting and complicated task than winning the bid.

As former IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch said, "The [Athens] Games are a great success, and they put the bar very high for Beijing 2008 Games."

(Xinhua News Agency August 30, 2004)