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

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