Olympic Dreams Come Alive

At first it seemed a mere junket, a chance to see some of the 2008 Olympic Games venues outside Beijing. But the six-day, five-city whirlwind “Five Rings over Five Cities” tour from September 5–11 took a group of domestic and foreign journalists to the heart of what the Games of the XXIX Olympiad means to the cities involved in the Games and to China as a whole.

The tour, led by Wang Hui, director of the Information Office of the People’s Government of Beijing Municipality, allowed the journalists to meet high-level officials in each of the Olympic cities outside Beijing -- except for Hong Kong -- and gave the officials a chance to meet some of the people who will be covering the Games in 2008.

Generally speaking, officials in all the host cities — Shanghai, Qingdao, Shenyang, Qinhuangdao and Tianjin — said they had supported Beijing’s bid to host the Olympic Summer Games and welcomed the capital’s success in winning the right to host the 2008 Games. They said hosting events -- football in Shanghai, Shenyang, Qinhuangdao and Tianjin and the Olympic Sailing Regatta in Qingdao -- was a serious challenge, but that the benefits far outweighed other concerns.

Again and again, they emphasized that while the 2008 Games are important, they are just part of a broader economic development strategy that involves opening China wider to the rest of the world, involving China more broadly in the world and improving the lives of the Chinese people.

Shanghai Preps for 2008

In Shanghai, the journalists visited Shanghai Stadium (1997), where at least nine Olympic preliminary football matches will be held, and the newer Hongkou stadium. Officials said they are hoping some games may be played in the modern Hongkou Stadium, China’s first stadium built just for football matches, which opened in 1999.

Renovations of Shanghai Stadium are scheduled to begin in December. China was supposed to host the 2003 women’s football world cup, but the event was moved to the United States because of SARS.

As it stands, the 55,000-seat Shanghai Stadium is a world-class athletic and events facility as was attested with the hosting of the Shanghai Grand Prix track and field competition held there in mid-September, along with other entertainment and exhibition events. It features a running track, good seating, and excellent athletic quarters, but also an elegant four-star hotel and restaurant and numerous name-brand commercial shops at ground level.

The stadium needs new giant television screens (which will be put out to international bidding) and lighting sufficient to meet high-level television broadcasting standards. Its facilities must be upgraded to meet the needs of the media, a subject on which CCTV has been consulted.

“We’ve always held most of our events here at night,” Sun Weixing, director of the Information Office of Shanghai Municipality, said. “We never had to deal with the lighting issue before. Also, it’s been difficult to use cell phones in the stadium; we’re going to fix that.”

Sun said athletes will be transported to the stadium from hotels in the Shanghai Central Business District (CBD). Two subways serve the station at this time, but two more will be added by 2008 giving Olympic football fans an array of options for getting to the games.

Qingdao Sails into Future

The Olympic excitement in Qingdao strikes you as soon as you deplane. A bright, modern new airport awaits those who will attend the Olympic Sailing Regatta on Fushan Bay.

Following the opening of the Qingdao Olympic Media Centre on Hong Kong Road in this historical, tourism-oriented coastal city, Vice-Mayor Zang Aimin said hosting the Olympic Sailing Regatta will bring the world’s attention to the photogenic city, thereby improving its economic, cultural and tourism prospects.

Zang said, “The city will benefit from the ‘Green Olympics’ because with it will come sustainable development…The people will be the biggest beneficiaries from the Olympics, because they will live in a better place.”

Zang promised an “incorruptible and sunny Olympics,” which will be strongly promoted. For instance, the sailing vessel Qingdao will sail the Chinese coastline in coming months to publicize the Qingdao sailing event before it sails to Europe with the same mission in mind. She said a “clipper rally” is being planned and that efforts to cooperate with the 32^nd America Cup could result in that tour stopping in Qingdao.

Even as Zang spoke, a meeting of the International Sailing Federation, the organising authority of the Olympic Sailing Regatta, was being held at the headquarters of the Olympic Sailing Committee’s offices on Donghaixi Road in Qingdao.

Shenyang Backs Beijing

Like Shanghai, Shenyang’s Wulihe Stadium is fully capable of holding world-class sporting and entertainment events just as it is. Internally, the stadium is in good shape and has plenty of excellent seats, private boxes, large television screens and other modern conveniences, but it, too, will be improved following the end of the football season in November. Also like Shanghai, Shenyang officials said they expect to host some of the games of the 2007 FIFA Women’s World Cup, which will serve as a “test” of the renovated facility.

Shenyang Vice-Mayor Xing Kai said this Northeast China city will use its Olympic opportunity “to surprise the world.”

“We thank the BOCOG and Beijing for giving us this opportunity.”

By 2008, Xing said Shenyang will have three subway lines (construction on one has begun), will establish a high-speed rail link to Liaoning’s coastal city Dalian, will abandon the “ring-road” expressway construction concept and will build a “grid” traffic system to improve traffic flows within the city. The city’s airport is modern and accepts international passenger traffic.

The vice-mayor said (and a long-time foreign resident confirmed) that air quality, though still problematic, has improved in the industrial city. He added that foreign-direct investment is being well-used in the city and that “we will accept all we can get, as long as it’s non-polluting. If not, no matter how much people offer, we will not accept it.”

He said the world can be assured that Shenyang will do its best to stage the best Olympic football events that it can, because, he revealed, that if the city doesn’t fulfil its promises, “there’s back-up stadiums ready to take our place.”

Qinhuangdao: Small City, Big Ambitions

A broad, smooth, multi-lane expressway connects Shenyang to the coastal city of Qinhuangdao, the only Chinese city named after a former emperor, Qinshi Huang of the Qin Dynasty. Here in this bustling rail hub and coastal port, home to the seaside resort of Beidaihe, the Qinhuangdao Olympic Center Stadium was the first Olympic stadium to be completed. Construction began in 2002 and it is already ready.

Qinhuangdao Mayor Jin Ruiting admitted the Olympics offered significant challenges.

While the city must battle nature in protecting Shanhaiguan’s cultural relics, including “the First Pass under Heaven,” and old, attractive villas and hotels in Beidaihe, the challenges in the city centre are more formidable.

“Our port handles about 50 percent of the coal exported from China, and we haven’t found a way to redirect the trucks hauling coal that must pass through the city to get there. Also, you may have noticed, we have a lot of rail lines. Some people say we’re the busiest city in China, perhaps the world, in terms of rail traffic, but this is under the control of national rail authorities. There’s not much we can do on our own to improve this situation, but we are doing our best.

“Next year, we will begin a major greening programme in the city.”

In addition to tourism, the mayor said the city is a leader in high-quality glass and steel production in China and is becoming better known for its Hua Xia wine, made from grapes imported from France (Bordeaux cabernet sauvignon). The glass and steel are being used in Olympic projects in other cities. The city’s experts are also leaders in bridge design and construction.

But there’s more to sport in Qinhuangdao than the Olympics, as important as they are.

The mayor said, “Every new apartment development in the city must include sports facilities, including football fields. It’s very important for cities to foster healthy lives. This is a priority concern of our neighbourhood committees. We even have programmes for the very old and very young.”

Tianjin: The Face of the Future

Another good road took the journalists to their final, stunning stop on the tour: the city was almost unrecognizable for those who had not been there within the past five years. Smoky, narrow, choked streets and highways have given way to broad expressways connected by massive flyovers. The city is now served by subways and light rail lines that shuttle workers from the city centre to the massive Tianjin Economic Development Area (TEDA), which is just another term for a new, modernistic phenomenon on Tianjin’s coastal prairie.

The journalists were given a taste of what to expect in the Tianjin Olympic Centre (TOC) when they toured the ultramodern TEDA Stadium in the TEDA, but just a taste, because the Olympic centre area is going to be one of the most massive sports, commercial, residential complexes in China when completed.

Project Manager Hu Guanhi said the TOC project is “on budget and on schedule” and will be ready for test events in 2006.

Tianjin Olympic Center Project Construction Department Director Huang Dongsheng said the TOC was designed as a complete sport facility meant to be used by ordinary residents of Tianjin after the Olympic Games.

The design of the steel-structured stadium, which will seat 60,000, is such that 90 percent of the seats will be protected from falling rain or snow. In the summer, the stadium’s roof, which is unique because it covers both seats and the surrounding area outside the stadium proper, will channel cooler air from the ground level into the stadium and out the hole in the roof ensuring maximum comfort of sports and entertainment fans.

Olympic fans that will travel to venues outside Beijing in 2008 can expect to get the best travel, living, dining and sports services ever available in China, services that will rival those of any other sports centres in the world.

But they can also expect that these sports centres will not be gleaming islands in the midst of poverty and despair. The sports centres will, instead, be surrounded by new apartments, commercial centres, parks and completely renovated Chinese cities such as could hardly have been imagined just a few years ago, but the proof is in the pictures.

China’s Olympic dreams are becoming a reality.