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Picturesque Dragon Pool Park and the grand sundial-shaped China Century Monument in downtown Beijing provided the backdrop for scenes of jubilation on July 13 when thousands celebrated the second anniversary of the city's successful bid to host the 2008 Olympics.

Officials serving on the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 29th Olympic Games (BOCOG) recently took the opportunity to reaffirm their pledge to make the 2008 Olympics the "best" in modern history.

"Preparations have been progressing smoothly, in an orderly manner," says Liu Qi, who led the Beijing delegation to Moscow in July 2001 to compete for the honour of holding the Games as then-city mayor. Now the city's top Communist Party official and BOCOG president, Liu has assured the international community that the construction of Olympics-specific projects will be "left to the market".

"Competition (for the projects) will be fair, open and transparent," he told a press conference on the eve of the second anniversary of Beijing being awarded the 2008 Olympics. "That constitutes one of the guiding principles for our preparatory work."

Two years on, mass public festivities on a scale similar to those held for scoring the world's top athletics competition, but of a very different nature, recently took place to celebrate the city's victory over the SARS epidemic. The outbreak of the disease paralyzed the Chinese capital for two months, from April to late June. "We have emerged stronger and more confident from the epidemic," Liu Qi says, suggesting that organizers are eager to move forward, fortified by the knowledge they have gained from recent events.

An orderly manner

Currently, BOCOG employs 160 men and women. That number is set to increase in step with the progress of the preparatory work to around 4,000 before the Games open. In Liu Qi's words, the BOCOG staff is "quite professional and efficient". Thanks to their hard work, he says, planning has been completed for the construction of all 13 Olympics-specific projects, including the Olympic Park. "Old housing at the designated sites has all been pulled down, and former residents, numbering in the tens of thousands, have been resettled elsewhere in the city," Liu adds.

The Olympic Park, in the northeastern section of urban Beijing, will be home to the Olympic Village expected to house more than 10,000 athletes from all over the world, as well as the 80,000-seat State Stadium, where the opening and closing ceremonies will take place. The design for the State Stadium, which resembles a giant bird's nest, has already been chosen. Architects and artists are now attending to the final details.

The general public are being encouraged to comment on the three vying designs for the State Swimming Centre, chosen by a panel of experts from both within and outside China, to facilitate the BOCOG's final decision. Round two of the bidding will soon begin for the construction of both venues, in addition to the Wukesong Sports and Cultural Centre, the third most important project that, with 18,000 seats, will be the venue for the baseball competition. The winning builders will be announced in October and, provided all goes well, the bidding will be wrapped up before the end of the year.

Plans involving cultural events scheduled throughout the Olympic Games are also progressing, although some were delayed by the SARS epidemic. Back in April, BOCOG won International Olympic Committee (IOC) approval for the emblem designed for the 2008 Olympics, which will be made public in August. The emblem should have been unveiled in May. "Unfortunately," says BOCOG Vice-President Wang Wei, "we were unable to do that at a time when SARS was running wild."

The Olympic mascot and songs are being solicited, from all over China and the world, and the final choices will be announced in 2007. A group of scholars in Beijing has proposed that the Monkey King from the classic Chinese novel "Pilgrimage to the West" be made the mascot, arguing that the legendary figure personifies courage, wisdom, humour and gallantry, in addition to being everybody's friend.

A professor at Tibet University, however, insists that the Tibetan antelope, which inhabits the coldest and highest part of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the "roof of the world", is the right choice. "The animal is an extremely rare species," explains Thutan Khechu, an ethnic Tibetan. "By taking it as the mascot, the Beijing Olympics will highlight its contribution to environmental protection and ecological conservation."

Meanwhile, the Sichuan provincial government proposed to BOCOG that the panda should be made the mascot for the first olympic games held in China because of its universal recognition.

"Green Olympics" is a major theme of the 2008 Olympics. As a vital part of the preparatory work, the city is sparing no effort to spruce itself up environmentally so that before 2008, its air quality will be rated as "good" or "fair" for at least 85 per cent of the year. Initial success has already been reported in this "clear air" programme, with air quality meeting the intended standards for 60.2 per cent of the days from January 1 to June 30, 2003, an improvement of nearly 10 percentage points over the same period in 2002.

'Fair, open and transparent'

Since the World Health Organization (WHO) lifted its travel advisory against Beijing on June 24, Liu Qi and other municipal leaders have welcomed scores of VIPs from outside the Chinese mainland. These include Hong Kong tycoon Ying Tong Hok and a delegation from the US National Broadcasting Company, which paid US$3.5 billion for the exclusive network and cable television rights to broadcast all Summer Olympics and two Winter Games during the 13 years up through 2008. The guests were once again assured that bidding for all construction projects in Beijing, whether Olympics-related or not, is conducted in strict accordance with international practices.

Furthermore, the municipal authorities are revising or formulating 40 pieces of local legislation as part of an effort to ensure open, fair competition. "We will create the kind of legal environment that effectively guarantees equal treatment of companies intending to get involved in the preparations for the 2008 Olympic Games," Liu Qi says. "Our projects will be awarded to the companies that offer the best terms, whether they are Chinese or foreign, and whether they are based in Beijing or elsewhere in China or the world."

Design plans for the State Stadium, State Swimming Centre and Wukesong Sports and Cultural Centre were solicited worldwide. The State Stadium's nest-like design was contributed by a group of Chinese and Swedish designers. Companies from the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the United States, Japan, Australia and the Netherlands are to take part in the second round of bidding for the construction of the State Stadium and the Olympic Village. Those taking part in the second bidding round for the Wukesong project hail from Britain, Denmark, Australia, the United States and the Chinese mainland.

"All the Olympics-specific projects will be built with investment from corporate entities, with a view to reducing the financial burden of the government," Liu Qi says. "Because of this, we have taken their commercial use after the Games into full account." The Olympic Village, for example, will be turned into a new residential complex after the Games, while the Wukesong project, in the western part of the city, will be utilized for cultural activities, leisure and sports.

BOCOG has set itself a target of earning US$1.6 billion through marketing activities, which will be officially launched in September under a plan that has won IOC approval. The same principles of openness, fairness and transparency apply to activities ranging from the franchised use of the Games' emblem and mascot to the sale of souvenirs such as commemorative pins, baseball caps and T-shirts.

At the first IOC Co-ordination Committee meeting held in Beijing in early July, Liu Qi said Beijing would stick to the tenet of "practising financial prudence" while stressing that the competition venues would be "top quality". To ensure the success of the preparatory work, Liu told the Co-ordination Committee, BOCOG would strengthen its supervisory committee, which includes some noted experts from abroad.

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