OLYMPICS/ News
Whole nation count down for Olympic Games
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-08-08 21:12
BEIJING - A bunch of mass activities and sports-related events spread all over the country on Wednesday besides those in the heart of Beijing as the Chinese capital city marked one year to go before the 2008 Olympic Games begin.
More than ten thousand Tianjin residents gathered in the Olympic Sport Center to start a 5-kilometer walk covering several streets and blocks of the assistant city, which will host 12 Olympic men's and women's soccer matches during next year's Games.
A senior official of China's Mass Sports Administrative Center gave high praise to the enthusiastic citizens.
"Tianjin is the nearest competitive site from Beijing, so that the support and participation of Tianjin people stand significant importance for successful organizations of the Olympic Games," said Gong Yemin, vice director of the center.
In Qingdao, which will host the Olympic sailing event, mayor Xia Geng unveiled the one-year countdown tablet in the city center's Wusi Plaza before there kick off a series of celebrating events, including an Olympic torch exhibition and a mass swimming rally with ten thousand crossing over the Huiquan Gulf.
A thousand and 770 volunteers serving the 2007 Qingdao International Sailing Tournament attended a starting ceremony as the tourney, one of the Olympic test events launched in all competitive sites of the 2008 Games, begins to accept registers and opened the venues on Thursday.
The countdown party, however, is not an exclusive right of the hosting cities.
In the Southwest China city of Chengdu, an over three-hour flight away from Beijing, 2008 cycling fans rode a 62.5-kilometer journey in propaganda for the Olympic slogan of "Green Olympics".
Former Olympic champion, the long-distance specialist Wang Junxia led the group and said that the way they chose coincided with the Olympic spirit and promoted the sport of cycling at the same time.
In Yinchuan, Northwest China, more than a million citizens gathered in the morning to have a mass display of morning exercises, while people in other places of the country expressed their enthusiasm in various ways for the Games.
The 29th Olympic Games will officially open at 8:08 pm local time on 8 August, 2008, when the country, with a biggest population of the world, welcomes the most important sporting and cultural event for the first time.
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