|
|
Africa: Torch Relay in Final Run
 |
 |
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
The Monitor (Kampala)
8 August 2008
Posted to the web 8 August 2008
Timothy Kalyegira
Beijing
The Olympic torch yesterday continued making its way through some of China's most historic sites and on to its final stop, the Olympic stadium.
On Wednesday the torch was paraded through seven suburban districts of Beijing city.
Tens of thousands of Chinese, Olympic and national flags waving, lined the routine to watch and cheer on the symbol of the Olympic Games as it made its way from one athlete to the other in a relay that has become an Olympic tradition.
The Games officially open today in the Olympic stadium. The protests that met the Olympic torch in Europe earlier this year have led the Chinese government to take extra measures to see to it that no disruptions take place on Chinese soil.
The torch is accompanied by security men dressed in blue and white T-shirts and shorts who jog behind and to the sides of the torch wherever it goes.
A Chinese air force test pilot was the first person to receive the torch at the Great Wall and a female Chinese singer will be the last to hold it up before it enters the stadium.
Everything in China has taken on an Olympic theme in preparation of the world's biggest sporting festival to be hosted by Beijing, the third Asian capital to host the summer games following on Tokyo in 1964 and Seoul in 1988.
Special CCTV channel
The state-owned CCTV television station has opened a special channel, CCTV Olympic, dedicated to broadcasting only the updates and events of the Olympic Games.
CCTV correspondents in helicopters were flying over Beijing yesterday morning surveying the different venues and reporting on the preparations.
An animal hospital in Hong Kong complete with a computerised X-Ray machine will be on standby to treat any horses injured during the Equestrian events.
A great deal of secrecy continues to surround the opening ceremony which the Beijing Olympic organising Committee has kept a closely guarded secret.
The only details that were released yesterday were that the popular Chinese Pop star Lee Huan and the veteran British Musical singer Sarah Brightman (Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 The Phantom of the Opera) will jointly sing the Olympic song for the Games.
Heads of State arrive
Heads of state attending the Games started arriving in Beijing yesterday.
Motor vehicle traffic that had been heavily cut back to de-congest Beijing ahead of the Games finally returns to normal today when the city's highways are opened to the large crowds of Chinese expected to make their way to the various Olympic venues.
Traffic Bureau officers dressed in light blue and white uniforms that make them look like police officers, are to be seen everywhere in Beijing.
China set stage
Meanwhile, in the first sports results, China set the stage for two weeks of expected national frenzy by beating Sweden 2-1 in the opening game of Group E of the women's soccer on Wednesday.
The football tournament started two days before the opening ceremony.
Eighty athletes from Taiwan are to compete in the Games. Taiwan is the island nation that parted ways with mainland China in 1949 and which China still fiercely considers part of historic China.
Among the world-famous stars already in Beijing, Brazillian star midfielder Ronaldinho, dressed in a yellow T-shirt and black shorts, was seem in the stands of the stadium watching the Brazil women's team play its first match.
|
The new world number one tennis player, Raphael Nadal, having just broken Roger Federer's four-year stay at the top as the world's number one ranked player, addressed a pre-Olympic press conference.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 2008 The Monitor. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | Subscribe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
