Beijing is on course to stage an outstanding Olympic Games amid
rising concerns over the city's air pollution and setbacks in
ticket sales in 2007.
From the venue construction to torch relay to volunteer
recruitment, the Chinese organizers are exerting utmost efforts to
make everything ready before the world's largest sporting event
starts next August.
"Everything is being implemented according to schedule and
deadline," International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge
said in Beijing during the one-year countdown celebrations to the
Games in August.
Yet the IOC chief also voiced concerns about the city's air
pollution, noting twice publicly in the past several months that
some endurance events might be rescheduled if the air is too dirty
during next August.
Despite billions of dollars spent to improve its environment,
Beijing is often blanketed by smog and a report released in October
by the United Nations Environment Program said Beijing was on
course to hold a Green Olympics but air quality remained a
problem.
However, Chinese officials insist that this issue could be
adequately addressed.
"The air quality has been improving dramatically - as the
records show since the worst time in the late 1990s - as a result
of astronomical investment pumped into the municipal government's
clean-up campaign," said BOCOG's executive vice president Jiang
Xiaoyu.
"An array of contingency measures will be taken during the Games
period and we are confident that the athletes' health will not be
at risk," he added.
Contingency plans were put on trial in Beijing in August, packed
with simultaneous Olympic test events operating in conditions
similar to those during next year's Olympic Games. The most
publicized measure was a ban that temporarily took off one third of
Beijing's 3 million plus cars from the streets through license
plate restrictions.
According to the BOCOG, other plans for next year include
shutting down construction sites and reducing the operations of
polluting industries in and around Beijing.
One thing that does not command worry is the construction of
Olympic venues.
Work on 37 competition venues has been well on schedule with 36
already inaugurated and the showpiece National Stadium, known as
the "Bird's Nest" for its giant latticework structure of metal
girders, is expected to be put into operation next March.
The public are obsessed with a massive hunt for a chance to be
part of the greatest show on Earth.
More than 760,000 people have applied for a volunteer's post,
while hundreds of thousands of candidates chased the 19,400
domestic torchbearer berths available, all keen to join in a
historical relay that will see the flame travel an unprecedented
137,000 kilometers around the world, culminating in an
awe-inspiring ascent over Mt. Qomolangma.
The ball is also rolling in an even bigger hunt for Olympics
tickets, with roughly 5.18 million subscriptions received by BOCOG
after the first phase of ordering closed in June.
Demand was so high in some events, like the opening ceremony
which was oversubscribed on a 30-1 ratio, that lotteries were used
to decide the allocation.
The organizers were forced to suspend the second round of ticket
sales following a booking system meltdown resulting from the
overwhelming demand.
"We underestimated the public's enthusiasm for the Games," said
Rong Jun, the then director of the Olympic ticketing center who was
replaced early this month by a municipal IT official.
Last, but not least, various campaigns aimed at improving the
behavior of local citizens finally bore fruits. More and more
people are getting to abandon old habits like spitting in public,
jumping ahead in line and littering.
A survey released by Renmin University of China at the end of
January found that in 2006, 4.95 percent of people still spat, down
by 3.5 percentage points from 2005, and the occurrence of littering
in public dropped from 9.1 percent in 2005 to 5.3 percent in 2006
and queue-jumping from 9 percent to 6 percent.
"Hosting the Games means a lot more than building grand
stadiums," said Zhang Huiguang, director of Beijing's Capital
Ethics Development Office, the etiquette watchdog.
Changing bad habits ahead of the Games is "crucial to providing
a cultural and historical legacy to China and the world as a
whole," said Zhang.
(Xinhua News Agency December 25, 2007)