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Beijing Reiterates "Massive and Ambitious" Plan for Olympic Venues
Beijing Olympic bidders on Friday reiterated their "massive and ambitious" plan to build new and upgrade the existing sporting facilities in the Chinese capital, which is rivalling with Osaka, Paris, Toronto and Istanbul for the rights to host the 2008 Games.
On the penultimate day of an International Olympic Committee (IOC) evaluation team's inspection tour, a top official from the Beijing Olympic Bidding Committee (BOBICO) promised to set up state-of-the-art Olympic venues which would dare for any comparison.
Beijing's Japanese opponents declared they can show off the best sporting facilities of the five candidates before the IOC evaluation commission scrutinizes Osaka, the second leg of their tour, next week, the Japanese newspaper "Daily News" reported in the Friday edition.
"Most of the existing venues in Beijing were constructed eleven years ago for the 1990 Asian Games, and a good many facilities are yet to be built," Daily News quoted a top official from Osaka's 2008 bid committee as saying.
"While most of our facilities have been completed except the main stadium and pool, and 80 percent of them are the existing facilities. We have already proved that they are capable enough of staging international competitions," said the Japanese official.
"I have to remind you that we're bidding for the Olympic Games in the year of 2008; we've laid down massive and ambitious construction plans for this purpose," said Jiang Xiaoyu, BOBICO's vice-president. "By then I'm afraid the existing facilities in Osaka have been outdated."
Under BOBICO's plan, Beijing will provide 37 competition venues and 59 training venues to host 28 different sports at the 2008 Olympic Games.
Among the competition venues, 13 have already been completed and 11 are being planned or under construction. In addition, eight venues will also be built if Beijing is chosen to host the Games, after the IOC votes to decide the bid's final winner on July 13 this year.
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