New news from Beijing...

The Olympic Village for the Beijing Games was officially opened Sunday morning.

The first to enter the 66-hectare compound were the Chinese athletes itself. Olympic Village mayor Chen Zhili (R) and Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games (BOCOG) President Liu Qi attended the launching ceremony of Olympic Village on July 27, 2008. The village is very close to the venues for athletics and swimming. It can accommodate 16,000 athletes and officials from 204 countries for the Olympics Games.

"We now welcome athletes from around the world to come to the Games," said Chen Zhili, the mayor of the village and vice president of the organizing committee BOCOG.

"We will try to satisfy the needs of people from different cultural and religious backgrounds. We hope you will like the facilities and services, and achieve desirable results at the Games."

Polish and Cuban Olympic delegations are also set to take up their quarters in the village on Sunday.Athens Olympic 110 meters hurdles champion Liu Xiang and NBA star Yao Ming were also present at the ceremony. The NBA star Yao will be one of the most prominent residents, and Spanish tennis star Rafael Nadal has also said he will stay in the village. But his rival Roger Federer prefer to stay in hotel who wants privacy.

"If you go to the Olympics you have to go to the village," said the French Open and Wimbledon champion Nadal.


Village Facilities

The 66-hectare village has 42 buildings, swimming pools, tennis and basketball courts, a library, shopping zones, as well as a hospital and fire station. Worship rooms are available for Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus and Jews.

Around 100 foreign chefs and 2,700 Chinese cooks will cater for athletes and officials in the dining hall seating 5,000. There are four zones offering Chinese, Asian, international and Mediterranean food. The menu will include Halal, vegetarian, low-sugar, Indian and Kosher food, with cards to show ingredients and nutritional value. It contains tea houses, coffee shops, a barbershop, post office, shops, library, a fire station and a clinic.

The athletes' apartments consist of three or four bedrooms around a living area, giving them an average of up to 22.5 square meters per person, compared with 19.5 square meters for Beijing residents and just 16 square meters at the Athens Olympics in 2004. Door locks are decorated with ancient dragon motifs and the entrance halls have ceramic ornaments of women in Tang dynasty-style costume in the entrance halls.

"This is one of the nicest Olympic villages. Conditions are one step higher than in Athens (2004)," said German Olympic Committee official Bernhard Schwank.

The athletes and officials are looked after by a large staff with some 2,700 hotel workers and nearly 5,000 student volunteers on hand. Builders made extensive use of renewable energy, water recycling, energy saving technology, environmentally friendly construction materials and solar-powered lighting. Air-conditioning is also solar powered and much needed for the hot conditions in Beijing.

Source : http://www.newindpress.com/
http://in.news.yahoo.com