The Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX
Olympiad (BOCOG) convened its 68th Executive Board session in
Beijing last Friday to study plans to recruit volunteers for the
2008 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games.
Starting next month, BOCOG will begin worldwide recruitment of
volunteers for the Beijing Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, said
the meeting chaired by BOCOG President Liu Qi.
As a large-scale systematic project, the recruitment aims to
reflect the three Olympic concepts Green Olympics, High-Tech
Olympics and People's Olympics and the meaning of the Olympic
slogan, "One World One Dream."
The volunteers will undertake corresponding posts and
responsibilities during the Games, working at times and posts
designated by BOCOG, offering voluntary services for the 2008
Olympic Games and Paralympic Games.
Project nears completion
The Tianjin Olympic Center Stadium, situated in downtown Tianjin Municipality, is to be completed by
the end of this year. Interior decoration work started on
Sunday.
Known as the "Diamond of the Bohai Bay," Tianjin is one of the
country's biggest industrial centers and one of the key ports, and
will co-host the Games with Beijing.
Serving as one of the football venues, the Tianjin Olympic
Center Stadium covers 78,000 square meters with a seating capacity
of 60,000. Construction started in August 2003.
After completion, the stadium will be used as a site for the
FIFA Women's World Cup China 2007 prior to the start of the 2008
Olympics.
Green belt built in Shandong
A green belt, running as long as 72.8 kilometers and 200 meters
wide, has been built in Dongying in east China's Shandong Province in a bid to create a green
corridor to link Qingdao, a co-host city for sailing events for the
2008 Olympic Games.
The green belt, with some 1.48 million trees, is on the
Dongying-Qingdao Expressway, which is the only road linking
Dongying in the interior of Shandong Province and the coastal city
of Qingdao.
Construction work on the green belt started in 2004, involving
removal of rubbish, dismantling of houses, dredging of ponds and
ditches and leveling of raised fields.
International regatta facilities finished
The construction of facilities for the 2006 Qingdao
International Regatta, the first of two test events scheduled for
the 2008 Olympic Sailing Competition, was completed last Friday in
this city in eastern China.
The 2006 Qingdao International Regatta will take place at the
Qingdao Olympic Sailing Center from August 18-31 this year, and is
one of the first test events of the 28 summer sports currently on
the Olympic programme.
Roads, flyover open to public
Two highways and a flyover around the venues of the Beijing 2008
Olympic Games opened to the public on Saturday, easing the traffic
pressure between the North Fourth Ring Road and the North Fifth
Ring Road.
The opening of the Xindiancun Lu, the western extension of
Xindiancun Lu and the flyover of Huixin Xijie offered better
conditions for the further construction of Olympic venues and roads
around them. All the three items are designed construction projects
for the Games.
Mass Olympic participation
Hundreds of villagers in Nanqi Village in Changping District in
Beijing hosted a marathon on Sunday, as part of their "Mass
Marathon Championship to Welcome the Olympic Games."
Starting from the village's Experimental Primary School, the
participants ranging from those in their 50s and the teens ran
along the local highway in Qijia Township to the cheers of
bystanders.
In Renhe Township of Shunyi District, more than 20,000 villagers
have taken up daily physical exercises, in their bid to keep "In
Step with the Olympic Games."
Press group leader visits
Jiang Xiaoyu, executive vice-president of BOCOG met visiting
President of the International Sports Press Association (ISPA)
Gianni Merlo on Tuesday in Beijing.
They exchanged views on the preparatory work for the 2008
Olympic Games and the 2008 ISPA Congress.
The ISPA was founded in 1924 and is headquartered in Budapest,
Hungary. Its legal seat will move to Lausanne, Switzerland this
September.
(China Daily July 7, 2006)