"This nation is ready to greet you with smiles. Let the whole world keep its eyes on us," goes the theme song for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games one-year countdown celebration. Titled "We Are Ready," the song released on August 4, was co-authored by highly popular Hong Kong pop musicians Peter Kam and Keith Chan at the request of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG).

On August 8, as part of the one-year countdown celebrations, over 100 Chinese singers from the mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong sang the song to a crowd of nearly 10,000 at a gala celebration at Tiananmen Square, which was broadcast live on China Central Television around the country.

The highlight of the night's celebration in the heart of the capital was when senior members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) sent invitations to more than 200 national Olympic Committees for Beijing Olympics. It marked the first time that this ceremony has been held in the host city of the Olympic Games, rather than at the IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Starting from August 8, a total of 63 events will be held across the country to honor the one-year countdown to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, including an IOC Olympic treasure exhibition, a 2008 Olympic landscape sculpture exhibition and football competitions among Olympic sponsors.

The 10 families selected through the "Olympic Families Tour Beijing" promotion, five from China and five from around the world, will embark on an official Olympic tour in China.

All-round progress

Beijing is almost ready to host the world's biggest sports event. Remarkable progress has been made in the construction of Olympic venues, said Wang Wei, Executive Vice President and Secretary General of BOCOG at a press conference on August 6.

He told the press conference at the State Council Information Office that all the competition venues will be completed by the end of 2007, except for the National Stadium, which should be ready in early 2008. To be exact, so far three venues in co-host cities, namely Qinhuangdao Olympic Sports Center Stadium, Shenyang Olympic Sports Center Stadium and Hong Kong Equestrian Events Venue have been completed, he said. With respect to the 12 Beijing-based venues to be built from scratch, including the landmark National Stadium and the National Aquatics Center, their main structures have been completed, with decoration and installation of electromechanical equipment underway.

Wang also briefed the press conference on the preparations for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, which will soon see various creative and technical schemes enter the production, implementation and rehearsal phases. Other developments mentioned by Wang included that the competition schedule for the Beijing Olympics has been decided and competition managers have been assigned to their posts; the selection of torchbearers for the Olympic torch relay kicked off on June 23; over 720,000 orders had been made for more than 5.1 million tickets as of the end of June; and more than 560,000 people have registered as Games-time volunteers, who BOCOG will intensify training for in the following months.

Good Luck Beijing

As a requirement of the IOC and a commitment of Beijing, BOCOG is now gearing up for the "Good Luck Beijing" sports events, a series of 42 international sports events to test the operation of the Olympic venues slated. The events will take place between July 2007 and June 2008.

The first "Good Luck Beijing" event, the 2007 International Women's Football Tournament, successfully took place in the two co-host cities of Qinhuangdao and Shenyang in early July. Another 25 sports events covering 25 different sports have been scheduled for 2007, with one equestrian competition in Hong Kong, one sailing competition in Qingdao and other events in Beijing.

Competition rules and schedules for all the events, including the daily schedule, have been set, and registration for each event has started and is being promoted on the official website of the "Good Luck Beijing" sports events (www.beijing2008.cn/goodluckbj/). Each of the 21 Beijing-based venues that will host this year's events, as well as the venues outside Beijing, will be finished and fully operational prior to each event.

The Beijing Olympic Security Command Center is now online and fully engaged in security for each event, mapping out detailed plans to guarantee the safety of all athletes, officials and audiences.

Better Access to Olympic News Upon the start of the one-year countdown to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, China is confident that foreign media will have better access to reporting on the Games and China itself. "We look forward to receiving journalists from across the world in Beijing in 2008. I am sure the foreign press in China will enjoy an even better working environment and have more access to information in the future," Liu Jianchao, Director General of the Information Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told press in an interview recently. "We are encouraged to see an increasing number of reports by foreign journalists, which now cover every aspect of our society," he said, "We are also encouraged to see that the new regulations have been widely welcomed and followed by foreign journalists, either staying in, or just making a brief visit to, China." Liu was referring to a set of regulations which took effect on January 1, named the Regulations on Reporting Activities in China by Foreign Journalists during the Beijing Olympic Games and the Preparatory Period. The regulations said foreign media professionals should enjoy wide and free access to report from China, and can conduct interviews as long as they get the permission of interviewees. "China has followed up on its pledge to facilitate the work of foreign journalists in China," Liu stressed, saying foreign media have enjoyed greater access compared with the time before the regulations were implemented. (Source: Xinhua)