Volleyball Brings Beach to City Park

Someday, somewhere in Central Beijing, there will be a beautiful stretch of beach with fine sand and tanned young people playing volleyball under a blue sky....This may sound like a dream, but it will become a reality when test events for the 2008 Olympic Games beach volleyball competition begin on August 13 at Chaoyang Park.

And after the 2008 Games, the public can join in the fun.

According to Tian Jinxian, general manager of the Chaoyang Park Development Corporation, the 20,000-square-metre Olympic Beach Volleyball Ground will be opened to public after the Games. Its centre court, with a seating capacity of 12,000, will be used post-Games as an open-air concert arena.

About 17,000 tons of sand, brought by barge and truck from the Chinese island-province of Hainan, will be used to build an artificial beach to make the beach spikers feel at home; a 5,000-square-metre swimming pool will be built on the north bank of the park’s lake.

Just four years ago, the location was a dumpy factory site. Now it is an Olympic venue with one main court, two warm-up courts and six training courts.

Part of the factory in the north of the venue has been rebuilt and redecorated to serve as a VIP room, offices for the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB), athlete’s restrooms and facilities for security and media people.

“We’ve also kept the trees planted 40 years ago by the gas factory,” said Yu Lili of the venue management team. These trees will provide shade for the athletes during the Games in 2008, and will also cool fans coming to the “beach” after the Games.

“We have our own nickname for our venue. We call it the ‘Swallow’s Nest’,” said Shen Naihong, venue director. “As both the Beach Volleyball Ground and the National Stadium (Bird’s Nest) are steel structures, the most important element of our ‘nest’ is the sand.

“Our standards for sand selection are strict: no impurities are allowed. Grains of sand should be the same colour and size. The sand cannot be too round, making its texture too loose. Neither can it be too edgy, because it will stick to athletes’ bodies and affect their performances,” said Shen. “It’s almost like selecting Miss World.”

To find the ideal sand, Shen and his team visited cities throughout China and around the globe. They whittled their selection down to samples from four cities in China and abroad, and the samples were sent to Canada for testing. “We’re quite relieved that the sand from Hainan was the best choice. We'll be able to use our own sand for our Olympic Games,” Shen said.

“The sand was packaged and shipped from Hainan to Tianjin, then carried to the venue by 30 trucks. We’ll spend five to seven days spreading the sand over the ground, 45 centimetres thick, 15 days before the test events this summer,” Shen said. The sand will be protected with a wind-proof and dust-proof net.

The 2007 FIVB Beach Volleyball Women’s Challenger is slated for August 13–19 on the site, one of the “Good Luck, Beijing” preparatory events prior to the 2008 Games. It will be Beijing’s first large-scale, international beach volleyball event, with 24 teams from around the world coming to compete.

“This will be a major challenge for us. To hold this event successfully requires that our team members be fully prepared mentally and physically,” said Shen, who created a plan for the staff’s physical and mental training. “Tournaments like this or the Olympic Games are not sprints; they are marathons, and our staff should be physically healthy and rich in knowledge about the game of volleyball.”

Wang Qin, the team’s secretary-general, said, “Beach volleyball is an outdoor sport that enjoys the sunshine. International fans never take umbrellas or hats with them to these games even on days like we have in August. Competition lasts from nine in the morning until midnight. At the end of each day, the staff will meet to discuss the day’s work. That leaves only three to four hours for our staff to sleep. That will be the schedule during the six days this August and the 14 days during the Olympic Games.”

Beach volleyball organizers are making sure that every staff member receives military-like training in the hottest weather, with no umbrellas or hats allowed!

“Beach volleyball is very popular around the world. We are required to understand and learn more about customs of different countries,” said Shen.