When International Olympic Committee (IOC) member Kevin Gosper set foot on Beijing for the 30th time, all the memories about the familiar yet changed city was back to his mind one year after the Olympic Games.
"It is still that Olympic city like a year ago. I saw people enjoy themselves at the Olympic Green and all the memories rushed back," Gosper, chairman of the IOC Press Commission, said on Friday.
He was here for the first anniversary of the Olympic Games which opened on Aug. 8, 2008.
"But the city has changed. It has changed from since it gained the right to stage the Games. It has been changing dramatically in the past 30 years," said the Australian who first came to China in1979.
The Chinese capital now is fastly growing with the Olympic legacies -- the experience of being an Olympic host city and what is left behind, education, new infrastructure, environmental improvement and so on.
"The ambitious culture and education program implemented by the organizers will remain as one of the strongest legacies from Beijing 2008," said Hein Verbruggen, chairman of IOC Coordination Commission for the Beijing Games.
More than four million Chinese children learnt about Olympic history and values.
During the seven years of preparation, Beijing built three new subway lines with a total length of 58 kilometers, let alone numerous renovation of streets and houses as well as a number of state-of-art stadiums including the national stadium Bird's Nest and acquatic center Water Cube.
One year after the Games, the Beijing citizen became increasingly used to relying on the public transportation, enjoying the lowest bus and subway fare all over China.
The city of 17 million people invested hugely in cleaning up its air, removing polluting factories, encouraging clean energy use and set strict emission standard for its over 3 million cars, which led to more clear days this year.
In the first five months of 2009, Beijing has 129 clear days, 22 more than the same period last year.
But the Olympics alone would not be able to push so far the country of 1.3 billion whose changes have became more visible everyday since the reform and opening up 30 years ago.
"When you compare how the country's openness was 10, 20 or 30 years ago and today, the openness and transparency were remarkable when I first came to this country in 1979," Gosper said.
"The Olympics is only one link in the chain of changes, but a very important one," he added.
(Xinhua News Agency August 8, 2009)