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BEIJING, Aug 2: Releasing a pop song entitled “We’re ready” with a year still to go until the world’s biggest sporting event may appear premature, but the organisers of the 2008 Beijing Olympics have good reason to be confident.
The by-products of China’s economic boom may hang in a smokey pall over the city and the roads might be clogged by three million cars but the main stakeholders are more than satisfied with the progress made so far.
“We’re happy with all the preparations, there are no serious problems,” Hein Verbruggen, head of the International Olympic Committee (IOC)’s inspection commission, told the official Games’ website this week.
Not for Beijing the construction delays that have blighted the run-up to previous Games, most notably the Olympics in Athens three years ago.
“Venue construction has always been an important and sensitive issue of preparation for Olympics,” Verbruggen said.
“We have never been concerned about the construction progress of the venues in Beijing.” The first two purpose-built venues — the Shunyi rowing lake and the shooting range -- were officially handed over last week, and all but one of the other 34 venues are on schedule for completion by the end of 2007.
The 3.13 billion yuan ($413.3 million), 91,000-seat National Stadium, which will host the opening ceremony and athletics, will be the last to be finished, in March 2008.
The steel superstructure, which gives the distinctive stadium its “Bird’s Nest” nickname, is already looming over the city’s fourth ring road, however, and organisers are confident that four months will be plenty of time to test it.
Not for Beijing either the money squabbles that have marred the early stages of London's preparations to host the 2012 Olympics.
The $2.1 billion it costs to run the Games should be easily covered by a hefty IOC contribution, a highly successful sponsorship programme as well as ticket sales and merchandising.
The government will be happy with their return from the estimated $40 billion being spent on infrastructure if the huge new airport terminal and four new subway lines have the effect of presenting a thoroughly modern Beijing to the world next August. Not everyone is upbeat, though.
Human rights groups concerned with everything from labour rights to human rights in Tibet and Darfur have latched on to the Olympics as a way of putting pressure on China.
Beijing also remains one of the most polluted cities in the world despite the removal of some of the worst offending factories and plants from the city.—Reuters
