The other 40 were selected from more than 1,700 candidates from Shanghai top-level universities, Wang added.

All the girls were picked by experts from various professions, including models, body-shaping teachers, journalists, singers, dancers and athletes, based on specific standards of their body shapes and facial features, Wang said.

A hostess needs to be a college student with good education background. She needs to be between 168 to 175 cm and good looking, which was specified in statistics of the sizes of bust, waist, hip and even mouth, nose, and eye, Wang said, but she refused to reveal the numbers.

"It was only a reference for the experts and some girls failing to accord with the size were also selected because of their beauty and passion," Wang said.

Yang Xu said she had been in a selection process since last May. The previous rounds were done in her college, Beijing Yixian Professional Education Institute.

"It is a chance, a god-given chance, to be more accurate, as China has been longing to host the Olympics for 100 years. I simply want to be part of it for the experience and to improve myself," Yang Xu said.

Her feeling was exactly shared by many other women, including a pair of 19-year-old twins named Li Ziye and Li Xiaoye.

The twins had always been eye-catching among the hundreds of beauties.

They said they will probably be the hostesses for the first gold medal of the Games as athlete guides at a shooting venue.

They had undergone a strict timetable from 6:30 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., regulating their life from getting up in the morning to falling asleep at night. They are scheduled to run in the morning and have classes all day until 8:30 p.m..

The training was hard work but there were lighter moments, said the elder sister Li Ziye.

She said they were trained to smile with eight teeth exposed and look at the camera flashes without blinking.