It will not be late. Merely that the completion date for the Beijing Olympics marquee venue has been pushed back by a month to allow preparations for the opening and closing ceremonies. It will now be fully ready late April,

Jiang Xiaoyu, in the China Daily newspaper, said, ‘The construction of the venue and the background setting up for the ceremonies are going on together now, which has postponed the working progress of the Bird’s Nest. The Bird’s Nest will be the last but the best venue at the Beijing Games.’

Organizing committee spokesman Sun Weide said the main structure of the stadium was complete and only finishing touches remained.

With enormous twisted beams wound around the exterior like silver twigs in a nest, the 91,000 seat National Stadium is the centerpiece of the games, a massive prestige effort which will make the games memorable and will remain as a wonderful sympol. A legacy of the games.

Jiang Xiaoyu did not elaborate on the preparations for the opening and closing ceremonies — directed by Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou. The details are top secret.

Speculation among ordinary Chinese abounds on the Internet, with many guessing at how the Olympic flame will be lit during the August 8 opening ceremony.
Source: AP

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

With the Beijing Olympic Games 239 days away, BOCOG (Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad) celebrates its sixth birthday.

Liu Jingmin, BOCOG executive vice-president, said, ‘In the beginning, BOCOG had less than 100 staff members, but with the growing workload, we had to move twice, first from Xinqiao Hotel to a more spacious place — Qinglan Plaza in September 2002.’

On July 13, 2002, the first anniversary of Beijing’s bid victory,BOCOG officially published the Beijing Olympic Action Plan, which outlined the promises made in the bid document.

The plan covered such areas as general strategy, the construction of competition venues and related facilities, an ecological environment and city infrastructure, the social environment, and logistics.

In the first three years, BOCOG drew up and implemented a series of plans, unveiled the Olympic emblem of a ‘Chinese Seal, Dancing Beijing,’ dislosed the theme slogan of ‘One World One Dream,’ and revealed the five Fuwa mascots.

From 2003 to 2005, extensive work was done to draw up the competition schedule of the Beijing Olympics. The opening and closing ceremonies, ticket sales, the torch relay and other matters were also put on BOCOG’s agenda.

During this period, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) increased guidance regarding Olympic preparations.

In January of 2006, BOCOG moved again to a new but this time permanent place — the Olympic Tower, designated as the command center of the Olympics in 2008. The body of BOCOG expanded to over 20 departments.

2006 saw attention focused on the core of the Olympics, namely the sport competitions.

BOCOG oversaw the progress of the Olympic venues, the finalization of the sports schedule, ticket sales, recruitment of volunteers, and the staging of Good Luck Beijing sport events to test the venues’ functions and the organizers’ capabilities.
Source: Beijing 2008

3.6 million jobs were created in preparing for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

Beijing Vice Mayor Liu Jingmin, who is also the executive president of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games (BOCOG), said at least 600,000 jobs were created every year following the start of work in 2001.

The jobs ranged from management positions to unskilled labor in all facets of development including urban planning, construction, cleaning and greening of the environment, tourism, transportation and communications.

The region also recorded significant increase in gross domestic product (GDP) reaching 12.1% and RMB770 billion ($102.7 billion), a per capita figure at $6,300.

Beijing is renovating 11 old sports gymnasiums to make them standard venues for next summer’s Olympic Games. The number of such facilities represents one third of the 31 competition venues located in Beijing because the Games organizers want to hold ‘economical’ Olympics.

he task of renovation and extension is complicated as many of the gyms were built in the 1950s or 1960s, and they have shortcomings in firefighting devices, structure design or service equipment. And extra features are being added.

The Workers’ Stadium, built in 1959, is being turned into a football venue for the 2008 Games as you can see in our illustration. All its fire-proof materials have been renewed.
The 36-year-old Workers’ Indoor Stadium has a new air conditioning system and access facilities have been installed to meet the needs of the Olympic boxing and the Paralympic judo competitions.
The Olympic Sports Center Gymnasium, a handball venue in 2008, has new electricity-powered blind windows and open-type windows installed to improve natural ventilation and lighting.
Ying Tung Natatorium, where the water polo and swimming competitions of modern pentathlon will be held now has a solar energy collection system to warm up the waters at the swimming pools. The new moisture-drawing system there can lower the humidity inside the venue.
In the Capital Indoor Stadium, a volleyball venue for the Olympics, 62 dampers have been installed and the building’s roof has been reinforced to enable it to endure an earthquake measuring as high as 8 on the Richter scale. The newly-installed residual heat exchanger there can make use of the residual heat produced by the building itself.

On July 11, 2007, Beijing Municipal CPC Committee Secretary and President of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG) Liu Qi paid a site visit to the projects while updated on their progress. He encourage the constructors to abide by the ‘frugality’ principle, build high-standard and quality venues, find ways of their post-Games use to ‘better serve the Olympics and the residents at large.’
Source: Beijing 2008