It matters not what international newspaper or wire report you get pretty much the same conclusion — construction work for the Olympics will be finished in time.

Kevan Gosper, vice president of the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) coordination commission, said ‘We are very happy with the progress. They are right on schedule with the construction.’

The main stadium, the Bird’s Nest, which will hold 91,000 spectators will be complete by the end of March next year.
The neighboring water sports complex, the ‘water cube,’ as well as the other facilities are expected to completed by the end of this year.

The plan may sound very ambitious, but the organizers are confident that the schedule can be kept.
Sun Weijia, chief of media operations at the organizing committee said, ‘It can be done. The workers labour in shifts around the clock, seven days per week.’

The media interest in the Games is a record in itself. Some 5,600 journalists and photographers were accredited by the IOC to cover the events.

On transport Beijing’s mayor Wang Qishan saw the inauguration of a new 27-kilometer subway line as ‘a sign of our determination to give priority to the development of the city’s public transport infrastructure.’ By next year, the subway lines will be extended from the current 142 kilometres to 200 kilometres to provide access to all Olympic sports facilities.

The organisers have also received accolades for the athlete’s accommodations.

Gerd Graus, an official German observer of the proceedings said, ‘The athletes will be more than pleased with the Olympic Village, which offers nice rooms with ample space and good comfort.’

Are there any problems?

The weather and the smog. The IOC has voiced concerns about the expected hot and humid weather that typically prevails in Beijing in August, as well as the smog.

Road traffic restriction trials in August this year only slightly improved the air pollution, but at least resulted in much better traffic flow.

Kevan Gosper is convinced that the measures, if rigorously maintained during the Games, will help to alleviate the otherwise daily traffic congestion. He said, ‘I don’t foresee any problems with transportation.

Zhang Xiaodong, director of transport at the Olympics, told a session  of the 14th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS)  in Beijing that nearly 16,000 drivers and service personnel will keep more than 10,000 official Olympics vehicles running smoothly.

Nearly half of the 10,000 vehicles, all equipped with wireless communication devices, will exclusively serve Games events, while 2,200 shuttles and sponsors’ buses, as well as almost 2,000 rental vehicles, will be available for the Olympic community at large.

He said, ‘An integrated traffic control center with a transport operation center, seven sub-centers, and car teams set up by the Olympics transit stops and venues is to be formed.’

A similar three-layered, real-time command-and-control system will be adopted to monitor all Olympic venues, lanes and locations on a 24/7 basis.

Considerable challenges, however, remain. Nearly 5,000 members of the International Olympics Committee (IOC) and VIPs, over 12,000 athletes and team officials, 3,000 technical officials, more than 21,600 accredited media professionals, nearly 400,000 sponsors and guests, and over 100,000 staff are expected to attend the Games. They all have to be transported.

Beijing has initiated a series of drastic moves to encourage transit usage most of which involve moving people out of cars and on to subways. All the signs are it will very possibly work as planned with the odd hiccup here and there.
Source: People’s Daily Online

The Beijing Olympic Broadcasting is aiming to stage the best ever television coverage for the Olympics.

Addressing the World Broadcaster Meeting, BOB production manager Bob Kemp said, ‘BOB aims to facilitate the best Olympic Games television coverage ever for viewers around the world.’ The BOB does not refer to the bob sleigh event. It refers to Beijing Olympics Broadcasting.

Host broadcasters BOB have been working closely with the Beijing Organising Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games (BOCOG) to fine-tune all the broadcasting plans for the two-and-a-half week show.

The Beijing Games will provide increased coverage in several sports, including table tennis, which enjoys vast popularity in China, tennis, badminton, and fencing.

BOB will also offer — for the first time in Olympic Games history — some virtual enhancement elements on the International TV signal from selected sports at the discretion of the producer.

Bob Kemp said, ‘BOB will insert when appropriate, a world record indicator on track events of 1,500 metres or longer. The pace of the indicator will be based on the current world record holder’s split when the record was set.

‘Throughout the final, there will be a virtual indicator to show the current gold medal-winning performance for an easy indication of the latest attempt against the best in the competition to that point. These virtual enhancements are being offered to enhance the viewers’ understanding and enjoyment of the action.’
Source: Jamaica Gleaner

50 volunteers are getting ready for the task of covering Olympic press briefings. Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the 2008 Olympiad (BOCOG) has announced that Renmin University and University of Missouri-Columbia (shown in our illustration) signed up for a volunteer project in which the two universities will cooperate to select and train 50 English-native-speaker volunteers for 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

The University of Missouri-Columbia will recruit graduates and undergraduates and train them during this semester with special knowledge and skills to ensure those students will be competent for the tasks assigned by BOCOG in the 2008 Olympic Games.

Much of their work of their tasks will be writing press conference highlights. Not a job to be envied.

These students will be involved in BOCOG’s Olympic News Services (ONS) team which will be under Media Operations Department’s direction.

Renmin University will provide the volunteers with free accommodation and will also present lectures on Chinese culture.

University of Missouri-Columbia is one of thirteen international universities who will recruit and train ONS volunteers for BOCOG.

These are but part of a larger team. There will be 300 English native speakers trained in BOCOG’s Olympic News Service International Volunteers Project. Six cooperating Beijing Universities will take care of their housing. The international universities are mainly from the United States, Britain and Australia.
Source: China View

In almost every area China has the Olympics wondrously well organized. The last two mountains to climb are pollution and language. Something plainly is being done about pollution especially as the world’s press has picked it up as an useful and continuing story. Language is something else again. According to a report issued by Ministry of Education (MOE), China has set strict standards on the use of both Chinese and English in the service industry.

The report showed that China has regulated the Chinese to English translation for such service as washing rooms, restaurants and hotels to help visitors to know where they are and what they are. The regulation also includes ways of translation for Chinese cuisine. A coordination work team has also been established to carry out language training programs.

Statistics suggest that by the end of 2005, more than 4.1 million residents in Beijing had learned foreign languages. That is 30% if the population.

This statement needs to be regarded in the light of the definition of the world ‘learned.’ The writer learned French at school and is a whiz at telling you that his uncle’s pen is in the garden of his aunt. Which is interesting but less than totally useful. So it could be said one has ‘learned’ French without having the faintest idea how to speak it in the real world. So the suggestion that 30% of the population of Beijing has ‘learned’ English may well, on the face of it, be true. That is not to say that they can speak and understand English. At least, not well. This is not true of the younger generation. Young students possibly would be the best bet as interpreters. (In our illustration there is no apparent problem in communication. This encounter happened during a friendly match between China and Queen’s Park Rangers.)

Nearly 200,000 people in 11 businesses such as tourism have received some language training to improve service for the Olympics.A number of books on the English speaking during the Olympic Games and the volunteer service training have been published. The map of Beijing is also published in Chinese, English and French on the official website of the organizing committee for the Beijing Olympics.

Li Yuming, an official with the Ministry of Education in charge of language administration, said that the language usage for the Olympic Games still had problems.

For example, China has two table tennis players Ma Lin and Ma Long.
If you put their given names ahead of their first names, following international practice, their names will appear the same as ‘L. Ma’ which is confusing.

The official also said that translation of the names of places and roads in Beijing also need some regulation.

This will be the one area that will be difficult to get right. Reverse the situation and think of the games in, say, London. And imagine the majority of the visitors are Chinese.

How successful would London be at making sure enough people learned enough Chinese to be useful? Quite so.
Source: JongoNews