In Beijing's northeastern suburbs an advanced Olympic water
sports venue is being built where as many as 32 gold medals will be
competed for at the Beijing 2008 Games.
As one of the main Beijing Olympic venues the Shunyi
Rowing-Canoeing Park, located in the city's northeastern Shunyi
District, covers 31,850 square meters and a seating capacity of
37,000.
During the Games the venue, which is 36 kilometers from the
Olympic Village, will host 32 events including marathon swimming,
rowing, canoeing and kayaking.
It will be the third largest "gold medal pool" after the
National Stadium and the National Aquatics Center in the Olympic
Central area.
Construction of the park, the first venue in the world that has
both a flat-water area and a competition course for slalom, started
in July 2005.
"The park is the most advanced rowing and canoeing venue in the
world at present," said Zhang Lei, general manager of Beijing
Olympic Aquatic Park Co. Ltd. "The combination of the flat water
and slalom areas will help a lot in the post-Games use of the
venue."
According to officials from the venue management committee the
park will become the largest water sports and recreation center in
Beijing's rural area.
"The design and construction of the park is based on the
principle of serving the competitions at the Games and assisting
the people afterwards," said Zhang Xiangdong, vice-director of
Beijing Shunyi Olympic Venues Management Committee.
"After the Games it'll be used for competitions, training,
recreation and fitness to become the largest holiday resort in
northeastern Beijing. It'll leave a valuable legacy to the people
of Beijing," said Zhang. On completion of the park the water
surface area will be nearly 600,000 square meters.?
"Together with the construction of the Chaobai River Forestry
Park and the renovation of the Chaobai River a huge natural 'oxygen
bar' will be formed in Shunyi and the Olympic venue will be
surrounded by the forestry park," Zhang added.
As an important milestone of the project's construction the
water reservoir of the park became operational on October 31. A
total of 1.7 million cubic meters of water will be pumped into the
course to test the operation of the whole project such as water
recycling, the pumping system and the competition courses.
"We've calculated the most economical amount of water that is
required for the competition and the recycling system will also
help to save water," said Zhang Lei. "We could say that it's the
venue where the 'Green Olympics' concept is most widely used."
The project is scheduled to be completed next April and will
have three test events in Augus... the Canoe-Slalom China Open, the
Canoe-Sprint China Open and the Rowing World Junior
Championships.
Besides constructing the venue Shunyi District also considers
the Olympics to be a good opportunity for its development. In order
to build up an appealing environment for the Olympic Games the
District is also making efforts to improve its infrastructure.
To make it more convenient for competition spectators a new road
is being built between Beijing and Shunyi. During the 2008 Games
it'll take only 30 minutes to go from central Beijing to the Shunyi
venue. It's more than an hour currently. A total of 26
road-building projects are underway in Shunyi this year.
"To further improve the environment the district government also
encourages citizens to make suggestions," said Zhang Xiangdong. "So
far nearly 1,000 ideas about how to improve the environment have
been sent to the Shunyi 2008 Environment Construction
Headquarters."
To better serve the Olympic Games and the Paralympic Games local
people working in the service sector started to take Olympic
training courses three years ago such as sign language, basic
English and reception etiquette. Over 150,000 people have already
received such training.
(China Daily November 24, 2006)
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