Beijing's Universiade Preparation in Final SprintThe 2001 Beijing Universiade Organizing Committee made a presentation here on Friday's afternoon featured how the capital city of China has been preparing for the tournament.The Supervision Committee of the International University Sports Federation (FISU) and the heads of the delegations expected to participated in the Beijing Universiade sat in on the presentations. In the report, the preparatory work as whole have entered its final phase and some projects are now ready for use at present. Covering a total surface area of 220,000 square meters, the Beijing Universiade Village contains 13 buildings and will be able to accommodate 7,000 people. The recreation and civic facilities locate in the Village will provide world-class services for the athletes and officials. All the 52 competition venues which confirmed by Universiade Technical Committees last July have been renovated. Three main venues -- the Worker's Stadium, the National Olympic Center and the Capital Stadium are now well up to international standards. By far, most of the renovation work have been completed while that of the whole work will be finished before May 30. The only exception is the venue for tennis, it will be ready at the end of June. Installation of the 360 kinds of equipment approved by FISU Technical Committees will begin in April and is expected to be completed by June. Technical infrastructure including the computer information system are now in the final stage of installation. The Organizing Committee said that 116 countries and regions have registered for the game by the end of March and 79 of them have submitted the size of delegation. It is estimated that the number of attendees will close to unprecedented 7,000, while the previous entry record of athletes and officials, a total of 6,009 from 125 countries and regions, was set up at the Palma Universiade in 1999. |
| People's Daily Online --- http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/ |