CHINA: Beijng gets ready for the Olympics opening ceremony while people queue to buy special stamps

Record ID: 329505

  • Title: CHINA: Beijng gets ready for the Olympics opening ceremony while people queue to buy special stamps
  • Date: 8th August 2008
  • Summary: (BN03) BEIJING, CHINA (AUGUST 8, 2008) (CCTV - NO ACCESS CHINA) A TORCH BEARER HOLDING TORCH AND RUNNING VARIOUS OF TORCH BEARER WAVING HAND AND RUNNING TWO TORCH BEARERS HOLDING TORCH TORCH BEING LIT TORCH BEARER WAVING HANDS
  • Embargoed: 23rd August 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: China
  • Country: China
  • Topics: Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVA6YCZY0MT55FX0RJEC687NRBAX
  • Story Text: Hundreds of people in Beijing queued on Friday (Aug 8) to buy Olympic stamps to mark the day, when the 2008 Games opens.
    The opening ceremony is the culmination of China's seven years of hard work that reshaped the capital. It also sets the seal on a sustained economic boom that has seen the country emerge as a new superpower.
    China issued a special stamp featuring the Beijing Games' main venue the Bird's Nest stadium to mark the opening day, Aug 8.
    Hundreds of people, including international tourists and journalists, are eager to get one as a souvenir.

    "This is a special day, it is eight, eight, 2008, it is not very often to see, so I take this," said Jonann Fauchunsteiner, a German journalist, at a post office inside the Main Press Centre.
    The ceremony starts at 8 p.m. on the eighth day of the eighth month -- the number appropriately symbolising fortune -- before an estimated global audience of one billion.
    Advertising its new economic clout, China has invested $43 billion on the Games. Some $100 million, twice the 2004 Athens bill, has gone on "big bang" opening and closing ceremonies.
    Authorities have closed factories and pulled millions of cars off the road, but smog and haze enveloped the capital on Friday morning -- obscuring views of the futuristic skyline.
    There was also a chance of showers in the evening, despite talk Beijing would use experimental technology to ward off rain.
    Executive vice president and secretary-general of the Beijing Organizing Committee of the 29th Olympic Games, Wang Wei, said they are ready for any urgent weather situation.

    "So I can tell you roughly, we have contingency plans for three kinds of scenarios, so we are ready, whatever happens, the opening ceremony will continue," said Wang in fluent English.
    Sporting action will hit top gear the day after the ceremony.
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