The Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG) convened its 68th Executive Board session in Beijing last Friday to study plans to recruit volunteers for the 2008 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games.

 

Starting next month, BOCOG will begin worldwide recruitment of volunteers for the Beijing Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, said the meeting chaired by BOCOG President Liu Qi.

 

As a large-scale systematic project, the recruitment aims to reflect the three Olympic concepts Green Olympics, High-Tech Olympics and People's Olympics and the meaning of the Olympic slogan, "One World One Dream."

 

The volunteers will undertake corresponding posts and responsibilities during the Games, working at times and posts designated by BOCOG, offering voluntary services for the 2008 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games.

 

Project nears completion

 

The Tianjin Olympic Center Stadium, situated in downtown Tianjin Municipality, is to be completed by the end of this year. Interior decoration work started on Sunday.

 

Known as the "Diamond of the Bohai Bay," Tianjin is one of the country's biggest industrial centers and one of the key ports, and will co-host the Games with Beijing.

 

Serving as one of the football venues, the Tianjin Olympic Center Stadium covers 78,000 square meters with a seating capacity of 60,000. Construction started in August 2003.

 

After completion, the stadium will be used as a site for the FIFA Women's World Cup China 2007 prior to the start of the 2008 Olympics.

 

Green belt built in Shandong

 

A green belt, running as long as 72.8 kilometers and 200 meters wide, has been built in Dongying in east China's Shandong Province in a bid to create a green corridor to link Qingdao, a co-host city for sailing events for the 2008 Olympic Games.

 

The green belt, with some 1.48 million trees, is on the Dongying-Qingdao Expressway, which is the only road linking Dongying in the interior of Shandong Province and the coastal city of Qingdao.

 

Construction work on the green belt started in 2004, involving removal of rubbish, dismantling of houses, dredging of ponds and ditches and leveling of raised fields.

 

International regatta facilities finished

 

The construction of facilities for the 2006 Qingdao International Regatta, the first of two test events scheduled for the 2008 Olympic Sailing Competition, was completed last Friday in this city in eastern China.

 

The 2006 Qingdao International Regatta will take place at the Qingdao Olympic Sailing Center from August 18-31 this year, and is one of the first test events of the 28 summer sports currently on the Olympic programme.

 

Roads, flyover open to public

 

Two highways and a flyover around the venues of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games opened to the public on Saturday, easing the traffic pressure between the North Fourth Ring Road and the North Fifth Ring Road.

 

The opening of the Xindiancun Lu, the western extension of Xindiancun Lu and the flyover of Huixin Xijie offered better conditions for the further construction of Olympic venues and roads around them. All the three items are designed construction projects for the Games.

 

Mass Olympic participation

 

Hundreds of villagers in Nanqi Village in Changping District in Beijing hosted a marathon on Sunday, as part of their "Mass Marathon Championship to Welcome the Olympic Games."

 

Starting from the village's Experimental Primary School, the participants ranging from those in their 50s and the teens ran along the local highway in Qijia Township to the cheers of bystanders.

 

In Renhe Township of Shunyi District, more than 20,000 villagers have taken up daily physical exercises, in their bid to keep "In Step with the Olympic Games."

 

Press group leader visits

 

Jiang Xiaoyu, executive vice-president of BOCOG met visiting President of the International Sports Press Association (ISPA) Gianni Merlo on Tuesday in Beijing.

 

They exchanged views on the preparatory work for the 2008 Olympic Games and the 2008 ISPA Congress.

 

The ISPA was founded in 1924 and is headquartered in Budapest, Hungary. Its legal seat will move to Lausanne, Switzerland this September.

 

(China Daily July 7, 2006)