Press conference on Olympic co-host cities' preparations_BOCOG Official Releases

活动标题

Co-host cities of Beijing Olympics brief press on their preparations

活动描述

The co-host cities of the Beijing Olympics hold a press conference 3 PM April 16 in Beijing to brief the media their preparations for the Games. Spokespersons for the BOCOG Soccer Project Team, the Sailing Committee (Qingdao), the Equestrian Committee (Hongkong) and other competition districts answer questions from world's media. China.org.cn presents a live coverage of the press conference.

文字内容：

Wang Hui :

This is a routine press conference, however, there will be some things different. Today we have BOCOG officials and also officials from the six co-host cities. How are they making preparations? Quite often we hear questions like this. Yesterday we organized a tour to Qingdao. Those who have visited there got first hand information.

Now let me introduce to you the people present at this conference. Wang Haitao is the assistant chairman from Qingdao for sailing event; Lam Woon-kwong from Equestrian Events (Hong Kong) of the Games of the XXIX Olympiad Company Limited; Lin Weiguo, director of the BOCOG Soccer Project Team; Xu Xingjia deputy director for the Tianjin competition district; and Xie Delong, director of the Tianjin competition district.

They made a special point to the press conference. They are very willing to share information about their preparation work.

First, let's have Wang Haitao from Qingdao for the sailing event.

2008-04-16 14:49:33
Wang Haitao :

Good afternoon. I'm very glad to have this opportunity. We'd like to share with you information about the sailing event in Qingdao. Due to time constraints, we'll just give you updates – some information with news value. And certainly you will be able to ask questions.

First our preparations. The Olympic sailing competition will be held from August 9 to 23 during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games period, with 11 events of 9 classes (11 gold medals). Nearly 1000 athletes, coaches and judges from over 60 countries will participate in the competition. Paralympic sailing competition will be held from September 8 to 13, with 3 events (Single-person keelboat, two-person keelboat and three-person keelboat) and 3 gold medals will be awarded. There will also be the opening and closing ceremony for these two events.

2008-04-16 14:52:34
Wang Haitao:

The Sailing Athletes Village will start to receive athletes for the events in time. The preparation has been going smoothly. We are going to introduce a Qingdao model for the first time. We built a spectator dam on land for spectators to watch the sailing event and also the medal stadium is very close to the dam where the spectators will be seated. This is called by the International Sailing Association as the Qingdao model. We achieved quite a few international standards, highly acclaimed by IASAF.

Traditionally, there are only long distance sight-seeing vessels which are four hours. Now we have short distance vessels ready, 1.5 hours, for a price of only 15 yuan. The long-distance fee is 160 yuan. The spectators seated on the dam will pay only 20 yuan. If you suffer from seasickness you can just sit on the dam to watch the event.

We have policies and the standards for media operations. We have the 8,000-square-meter venue media center. We also have another media center outside of the venue for non-registered reporters. The two media centers will open to journalists at the same time. We’ve also created cultural venues.

2008-04-16 15:09:24
Wang Haitao :

The train station has undergone renovation. In July, its capacity will be doubled. By July 1, the traveling hours from Beijing to Qingdao will be only 4 hours.

Concerning the torch relay, we have designed the torch relay route with escorts and bearers finalized, totaling 138. The event will last six hours on July 24.

Civic operational ability has been advanced. We have a security leading team to coordinate for the Games, and we have done rehearsals twice which cover the venue area, the peripheral area on sea and overland to ensure the safety and security of the participants.

This is my brief introduction. In August and September Qingdao will have its best season. I hope you can pay your visit there and enjoy the event as well as the smiles of our local people.

2008-04-16 15:22:09
Wang Hui:
Now, Lam Woon-kwong from Equestrian Events (Hong Kong) of the Games of the XXIX Olympiad Company Limited will brief you on their preparation for the equestrian events.
2008-04-16 15:33:07
Lam Woon-kwong:

I will give you a brief introduction of our preparation. With the support of the local government, even though timing is limited we are making the best use of our time. Horses will be the main draw so we are going to have preparations and measures for good care of horses and we also have the venues. The main venue is in Shatin and the main facilities have been completed. There are 18,000 seats for spectators and an administering center. By the end of May, all of the facilities will be ready.

The other venue is in Beas River because in Shatin we can't build a long enough track. We are now building up the track and barriers and by the end of July everything will be ready and we will have a handover of operation.

For the non-competition facilities, we have three hotels for the athletes and for the Olympic families. You can find details about the three hotels on our website.

2008-04-16 15:33:33
Lam Woon-kwong:

For the operation we enjoy smooth progress and we have also technical officials including 120 technical officials from overseas. We also have invited well-known equestrian experts. You can also visit our website for the schedule.

In terms of security, we have the local police providing the security safeguard. We are also going to provide internal security management. Accreditation will be important to security. We are processing applications in work with BOCOG. We have four centers to facilitate participants, they can choose different centers. We have designated several major hospitals to provide 24 hour medical services. We have 300 full-time doctors and 600 full-time nurses to work for the Olympic Games. As to the doping testing, we will take samples in Hong Kong and have the testing in Beijing.

We provide services for the safety of the horses. Hong Kong JC gave us very good support.

2008-04-16 15:35:06
Lam Woon-kwong:

In August, Hong Kong will have humid and hot weather. Therefore for the past two and a half years we collected a lot of data and came up with a plan. Last year during the test event we took into consideration the hot weather and the operation was very satisfactory.

The mass media is a very important part and we have strengthened our press centers. When you go there you will find very comfortable working conditions – technology and telecommunications especially. We have signed the contracts already. For ticketing we have a good result. We sold tickets not only to local spectators but also spectators from the Chinese mainland. According to requirements of the IOC and BOCOG, we provide transport services -- not only for people but also for horses. In the protocol we have oriented aroung the guests and in our airport we have four reception centers, as well as different services at different venues .

2008-04-16 15:37:17
Lam Woon-kwong :

For the welcoming party and cultural events we all have plans in place.

One important link is volunteer service. In Hong Kong we have very good laws and regulations. We have received 16,000 applications and done screening and have a large number of volunteers. It seems Hong Kong people are excited about the Olympics. For us we are very excited for the competition and we hope it can provide a record in our history and we are doing our best to cooperate with Beijing.

2008-04-16 15:39:29
Wang Hui:

Thank you, Mr. Lam. I think the introduction to the Hong Kong situation is exciting.

Let us move on to Football, Mr. Lin Weiguo.

2008-04-16 15:40:26
Lin Weiguo :

Today, entrusted by BOCOG, I'd like to introduce to you the situation for the football competition. Here I'd like to provide you with some information and if there's anything I've missed I'd like to invite our representatives and colleagues from other cities to proceed.

Now I'd like to discuss the following five aspects.

2008-04-16 15:40:57
Lin Weiguo :
I'd like to introduce to you the information on the operations and structure. As you know that for BOCOG they also have general administration and I came here in March 2005. And for football we have different areas so the situation is quite different. In 2006 we had working groups -- Mr. Yang to be the director and Mr. Zhang to be deputy director. Under this BOCOG football command group we also had established the BOCOG working team. They are responsible for coordinating all of the work in both cities. We have clear divisions for the city working teams. They are responsible only on the city level and for us we work as a supervisory organization. As for the management structure in other cities, they are quite similar to ours. Each city has its own organizing committee for each venue and there should be such an organizing committee for each venue too. All of the committees follow BOCOG's rules so we have a quite complicated structure for the venues at organizing level -- it is responsible for the organizing work.
2008-04-16 15:41:15
Lin Weiguo :

Next I would like to talk about the work we've fulfilled up to now.

Our responsibilities are first of all with the general Olympic requirements and with FIFA's requirements, for example, the standards for the hardware and the software. Secondly, we supervise the four venues including Beijing in terms of the preparation and the working standards. Thirdly, we are responsible for the Games time coordination and guidance. For example we have the center which is responsible for the Games time work and we have also the venue committee responsible for the work in October 2006. This team was put into operation. We have basically fulfilled our responsibilities. I have a very thick pile of materials -- you can see -- we have compiled BOCOG's requirements for the venues. It is about the guidance for the work in different venue cities. It includes the management personnel and operational structure. Besides this menu, we have translated the new city info to be provided to people in the four cities. We provide these standards to the different cities.

2008-04-16 15:44:30
Lin Weiguo :

For Beijing, in terms of competition venues, all of them are in preparation and we have basically completed the volunteers' equipments. We have basically completed all the tasks.

Recently on the 19th and 21st we will have some events. On the 19th we will have the games for Women -- America and Africa. Brazil and Ghana teams will be competing with each other at the Workers' Stadium. Yesterday Brazil and Ghana teams arrived safely, and have already held the first training. In terms of the preparation for these three events we have already completed the preparation. If you're interested for questions and answers I'd like to introduce to you the events.

2008-04-16 15:47:16
Lin Weiguo :
We have basically determined the agenda. Before the opening ceremony we won't allow any football competition to be held in Beijing. There will be more competitions for football outside Beijing and they are evenly distributed and I really want to emphasize equality between men and women. Up until now, 10 games were allocated to be in Beijing and for other cities and 12 for other cities.
2008-04-16 15:49:22
China Business News:

For Lam Woon-kwong and Mr. Lin: Just now I have looked at your introduction to the equestrian teams and there is one point concerning the technology and the horses. In terms of the doping test and technology, can you go into details for that kind of high technology? And another question, I think when watching football we can often drink beer and buy things. I wonder if you can tell us something concerning these sales.

2008-04-16 15:52:13
Lam Woon-kwong:

Concerning the horses, after they arrive in Hong Kong -- we are going to provide as comfortable and secure a place as we can. That's why especially we established a system which runs 24 hours a day providing air-conditioned stables for the horses because the horses are going to stay in the stables and it's a key point for them to have good rest.

For test events we have already recognition from the experts: they think we have the most advanced technology. In the stables they also mentioned that the climate in Hong Kong is quite humid and hot but there is no problem closer to the horses because of our high technology. After the competition we also want to reduce horses' temperature -- if we can't do it there might be problems with the horses. We have constructed the places that can provide shelter for the horses. After competition we have a water spray system so that the horses' temperature can be recovered to normal temperature within two minutes. All these different kinds of technology have been approved.

2008-04-16 15:52:51
Lin Weiguo:

Concerning sales I'm not quite clear that for the general administration whether you can provide such things. So I would like to invite you to contact people from administration of sport.

2008-04-16 15:53:10
South China Morning Post:

Mr. Wang & Mr. Lam: About this spectator dam -- what is the capacity? How many people will sit on this dam? And on days where there's very little wind and these people have to be offshore what will you do with these people? Refund their tickets? In terms of Hong Kong, there have been some fears among the Swiss and Austrians about the conditions -- can you now for the last time confirm that everything has been done in terms of the horses? And for Mr. Lin -- in terms of every country, there are fans at football matches who misbehave. Can you ensure that everything has been done for security and safety?

2008-04-16 15:54:15
Wang Haitao:
I'd like to answer the first question for the spectator dam. We have constructed it in line with the overall structure. Last year and the year before we had test events. Last year we did a calculation -- close to 10,000 watched the 2007 sailing event. It's quite a miracle. I've been to Athens. Each day they can only send five-six ships and each can hold only 50-60 people to watch the event. So this dam can largely increase the number of people who can enjoy the event. The low ticket price will be our strategy. The venue is on the sea but not on shore. This dam is in a very lovely position, diagonal to the sea line, where you can enjoy scenery. Even if can' get a refund won't mind – you can enjoy beautiful scenery with family members instead.
2008-04-16 15:55:47
Lam Woon-kwong:
Let me answer questions about the health and safety of horses. The International Equestrian Organization held an expert seminar, gathering together experts. They came up with three important conclusions. One: as an organizer Hong Kong has done what they could with what they had. Second, horses performed quite well in the test event in 2007 because we arranged the top facilities and the top veterinarians for sports. And third, in conclusion -- yes in August Hong Kong will have hot and humid weather but the competition can still go on. Certainly we want participants to adopt what is a responsible attitude that the horse riders, the jockeys need to go through training to make adjustments to the hot weather. What is more important, the jockeys have to prepare their horses according to the guidelines of the weather, so long as jockeys adopt the active responsibilities and take measures so the success can be ensured.
2008-04-16 15:56:43
Lin Weiguo:
The question you raised had two parts. Football as you know is the number one sport in the world. It's hard to ensure not even small incidents, which is almost impossible. But from a security perspective, we want to prevent certain incidents from happening; after incidents we need a settlement mechanism. China's security force is among the first-class in the world and we emphasize security facilities. We adopted hi-tech to ensure security. Therefore certain tools and apparatuses cannot be brought into the venue by spectators. We also have an emergency response system and sufficient forces.
2008-04-16 15:57:40
Lin Weiguo :
From operational and planning perspective, we can say that we can reach our goal and we also have done numerous rehearsals and Asia Cup in 2004 was held in Guangzhou and in 2007 we had FIFA women's tournament, so we have accumulated experience. We have international and domestic spectators. We want to make sure there are no hooligans getting into venues. For Chinese spectators in different cities we have education programs to make sure they'll watch games in a civilized way, but it's hard to say whether we will have fans making trouble but we are trying to prevent fans from making troubles but under the direction of IOC we will try to make sure no trouble occurs.
2008-04-16 15:58:30
Bloomberg:

I want to ask about the total investment in Hong Kong. How long will it take you to get a full return? Also, for the Qingdao sailing event?

2008-04-16 16:02:51
Wang Haitao:

The total investment is RMB 3.7 billion -- close to half of it is for the ship yard relocation and another half for the construction of facilities. The sources of the investment are from the premium price in land selling in the peripheral area. We are going to collect a return later on, for example, Haier is going to buy a piece of land and a Continental hotel will be taken over by the Continental Chain Group. Our press center will be turned into a training and educational center to train athletes and we will also have big events hosted there -- for example -- other sailing competitions will be using that venue. By staging those events we can get a return. We also have seven piers. These piers have already been booked by different clients so the private yachts can be moored there, so the speed of the return can be very quick and can even be a driver for the local economy.

2008-04-16 16:03:04
Lam Woon-kwong:

In Hong Kong, investment is from the Hong Kong JC. It's about 1.2 billion HK dollars. After the event the Hong Kong JC and the IOC will sign a letter of intention that in Hong Kong there will be a permanent museum on equestrian sport and there will be a community equestrian center to promote equestrian sport in Asia. In that way we can get return on our investment.

2008-04-16 16:03:33
Hong Kong Cable TV:

I would like to ask Mr. Lam a question. Concerning your security work in equestrian events on venues, how will you do the assessment? And when there is a possibility of a terrorist attack aiming at the horses instead of people or facilities, do you have a plan to protect the horses from terrorists?

2008-04-16 16:06:04
Lam Woon-kwong:

Security is important link under all of the games. Under the "one country, two systems" policy, it is really the task of the local police in protection of horses and horse riders. We have division of work of course. Anti terrorism, keeping social honors, prevention of certain crimes – these main tasks are with the local police. As with our organization, our security guards are to come up with internal security regulations, providing security for the trainings within the venue facilities. We have a close contact with IOC and BOCOG. And we also have assessment on the risks and there is something of a secret here so I cannot disclose everything.

2008-04-16 16:06:31
A foreign newspaper:

Almost all the athletes I talk to complain there is no wind. I want to know how many reserve days the sailing competition will have and if you can compare it with Athens and the Sydney Olympic Games?

2008-04-16 16:08:23
Wang Haitao:

Actually, for the sailing event it will depend upon the heavens. If there is no strong wind we have no solution. But anyway, we have held the games trials for two years. I know that for some Western countries they do not trust us and in fact we have no experience in this regard. But after two years I am convinced we have a competitive team and a qualified venue. In 2006 we reached a 91 percent, and the rate for 2007 is 78 percent a bit lower than the previous year. I believe we can finish all the items if there is strong wind only in one day during the Games.

2008-04-16 16:10:14
Wang Hui:

Last question.

2008-04-16 16:13:42
China Youth Daily:

I wonder what are your preparations for tourists.

2008-04-16 16:16:02
Wang Haitao:
For Qingdao, we have already established two centers: a city center to respond to the needs of tourists. In Qingdao, the number of visitors has increased from 18 million in 2002 to currently 30 million, and the number of overseas visitors increased from 500,000 in 2002 to 1 million in 2007. In 2002 we had only 60-plus hotels. Now we have about 130 three-star hotels alone., therefore we can guarantee safe accommodation.
2008-04-16 16:16:07
Lam Woon-kwong:

The annual figure for tourists in Hong Kong is around 25 million. August is not the busiest tourist season in Hong Kong, so accommodation is not a problem. We have been collaborating closely with Hong Kong tourism authorities, concerning ticketing and hotel reservations ticketing. All of us are quite looking forward to this August.

2008-04-16 16:16:59
Wang Hui:
On behalf of all the speakers, we'd like you to pay attention to the events not only held in Beijing but also in other cities. Thank you.
2008-04-16 16:18:27

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