One year to go: Racing ahead toward the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games

Today marks the one-year countdown to the start of the Games of the XXIX Olympiad.

As the symbolic "365" flashes on the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games countdown clock in front of the Chinese National Museum, the starkness of the Games becoming reality is genuine - no more so than when "1000" days, or "500" days or any other number of days blinked on the countdown clock before.

Beijing and the Chinese people are racing full speed ahead toward the Olympics!

It's been six years since Beijing won the honor to host the Olympic Games and manifest its century-long dream to host an Olympics.

Since then, a nation united has - through its organizing committee - progressed forward with venue construction, Olympic volunteer recruitment and a new transportation infrastructure for the Olympic City.

The official website of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games has gone from its nascent existence to mature into a comprehensive resource that serves as an important window into the Games of the XXIX Olympiad.

It has been the quest of the official webmaster and web staff to seamlessly present authoritative, fast, comprehensive news and information services to internet users around the globe.

Everyone involved with our multi-language platform strives daily to carry forward the Olympic spirit and to promote Beijing and the ideals of the Olympic Movement.

We pledge to be unrelenting in our quest to create the #1 website for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, with three fundamental objectives:

1. Create a platform internationally recognized as the only authoritative, accurate, fast and comprehensive platform for Olympic news. Providing up-to-the-minute announcements, news, and press conference information related to the Olympic Games is Job #1! During Games-time, we will present, real-time, live event scoring, technical statistics and current medal results. The website will eventually be available in five languages – English and French (the official languages of the Olympics) as well as Chinese, Spanish and Arabic - to give internet users everywhere equal access to timely Olympic information.

2. Provide comprehensive services targeted to individual customer groups such as media, fans, sports enthusiasts and volunteers, and

3. Create an influential platform for activity planning and promotions.

The official website of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games offers a platform for people everywhere to participate in the Olympic Games. Previous examples include the "Olympic Families Tour Beijing" activity; voting for the Top 10 news stories of the year and the Honorary Website Visitor campaign.

Mr. Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee says, "To all the visitors I would say the best thing that would happen in 2008 is the Beijing Olympic Games. Watch the website."

Please allow us into your homes and join with us in this final 365-day stretch to the start of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

Now, just one year away ...