For the first time in Olympic history, a Chinese person will run the second leg of the torch relay in ancient Olympia, Greece, where the flame will be lit.

George Aidonis, the city’s mayor, said, ‘There will be a few changes to the torch relay in Olympia this year, as a Chinese person will run the second leg, carrying the torch from the gate of the ruins to the municipal government hall.’

The Olympic flame for the Beijing Games will be lit in front of the ruins of the Temple of Hera at 12 noon on March 24.

The lighting ceremony of the torch ceremony will start with the ‘High Priestess’, played by Greek actress Maria Nafpliotou. She will then pass the torch to the first runner, a Greek athlete, who will carry it to the temple gateway and pass it over to the Chinese runner.

George Aidonis said, ‘This will be the first time a torchbearer from the Games’ host country will take the flame from a Greek athlete and run the second leg. The Chinese runner will be decided by the Chinese embassy in Greece and the Beijing Olympic organizing committee.’

The mayor said everything is in place, despite the fact the city is still trying to recover from a forest fire last year.

The mayor has participated in every lighting ceremony since 1978, and said he expects this year’s to be something special.

‘It’s hard to describe the feeling you get when the Olympic flame is lit. It is a deeply heartwarming experience. And seeing the flame lit for China — a country that has a long history and rich culture, just like Greece — will make the event even more special. The Olympic spirit will spread rapidly around the world.’
Source: China Daily

China Daily will publish the official English newspaper for the Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Games, as well as Village News — the official newspaper of the Beijing Olympic and Paralympic villages — according to a new agreement.

Jiang Xiaoyu, executive vice-president of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG), and Zhu Ling, editor-in-chief of China Daily, signed the contract on behalf of their organizations.

China Daily — the only national English-language newspaper in the country — will expand The Olympian, its current weekly journal in the run-up to the Olympic and Paralympic Games, by up to 48 pages daily during the Games.

Some 31,600 journalists are expected in Beijing to cover the Games.
Source: China Daily

The Beijing Olympics Organizing Committee (BOCOG) reports that only 450,000 tickets for this summer’s Olympic Games have been successfully allocated, accounting for about a quarter of the tickets available for sale in the second phase.

More than 700,000 orders for 4.2 million tickets were received by BOCOG, but only 123,000 bookings were confirmed after a computerized random draw.

Though BOCOG didn’t give a reason why about 75% of the tickets remain unsold it is fairly obvious — and this is confirmed from the experience of every previous Olymic Games — that some popular events were extremely over-subscribed while the rest of the events were in lesser demand. For example, the number of people who want to go and watch the equestrian dressage contests is finite.

Rong Jun, deputy head of BOCOG’s ticketing center, said earlier that the demand was ‘extremely high but too centralized on several hot events’.

This should not have come as a surprise. It has always been thus.

A total of 1.8 million tickets to the sports events of the Aug. 8—24 Games were put on sale in December. More than 1.5 million tickets were allocated in the first stage of ticket sales last year.

Despite the computer problems which badly affected some initial sales the end result will be the same at these Olympics as every other Olympics. Some events will be easy to get to even close to the day. Others, for more popular events, will be sold be ticket scalpers on the black market.

In Australia, there are concerns about the shortage of tickets for the Olympics. The Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) says it is in talks with organisers of the Beijing Games to secure more tickets for the families of competing athletes.

China has allocated 75%t of all tickets to itself, leaving the rest of the world to share the remaining quarter.

AOC spokesman Mike Tancred says the committee has made it a priority to allocate two tickets to each Australian athlete’s family for every event or session they are competing in.

He said, ‘I can’t say that no families will miss out, but we’ve absolutely made athletes’ families our priority because we understand how important it is to have that support in the stands for our athletes. We’re looking good at this stage. We just need those extra tickets in the preliminaries when the draw for the team sports is completed.’

Mike Tancred says the huge worldwide demand for tickets is making them difficult to obtain.
Source: East Day and ABC

Beijing vice mayor Chen Gang has said the construction of the venues for the 2008 Olympic Games cost less than RMB13 billion (about US$1.8 billion).

He told a press briefing: ‘We always encouraged frugality in the build-up to the Games.’

The cost of the National Stadium, known as the Bird’s Nest, was RMB3.5 billion (US$486 million). The central and local governments have contributed half of the cost with the remainder coming from other investors and donations.

Now with the National Aquatic Center delivered for use, all venues in Beijing except for the National Stadium have been completed.

There had been media reports — the Sunday Times in England leading the pack — that there had been ten deaths during the contrstruction of the National Stadium. Not so, said Ding Zhenkuan, deputy-chief of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Work Safety. He said, ‘During the construction of the Bird’s Nest, there were two deaths, one in 2006 and one last year.

‘We investigated the accidents and properly compensated the families with the guidance of national standards. People who were responsible for the accidents have been punished. All the accidents have been reported to relative departments.’

According to officials, construction of the 91,000-seat showpiece venue, which will host the opening and closing ceremonies, will be completed on schedule in April.

For the Beijing Games, 31 venues are needed for competitions and 45 for training. Up to now, 22 have been tried in test events.

Xu Bo, director of Beijing 2008 Project Construction Headquarters Office said, ‘Through the test events, all the venues have met the requirements of respective international sports federations.’ This is confirmed by every contestant who has seen them.
Source: EastDay

Celine Dion will compose a song for the Beijing Olympic Games and debut it at her maiden concert in the city in April.

The Canadian singer’s Taking Chances World Tour 2008 will open in Beijing on April 13 with a perfromance at the Workers’ Stadium in Sanlitun. It forms part of a series of Olympic celebrations by Games organizers BOCOG.

Via a video link-up Celine Dion, said, ‘I’m looking forward to my first-ever concert on the Chinese mainland.’

She sang The Power of the Dream as the theme song for the 1996 Atlanta Games.

Kan Ke, deputy director of BOCOG’s Culture and Ceremonies Department said, ‘Dion performed a great song for the 1996 Games and I hope there will be more like it in Beijing.’
Source: China Daily