Press conference: 'Beijing is ready'

Date/Time: 10:00 a.m., Friday, August 8

Venue: Main Press Conference (MPC)

Sun Weide

Good morning, welcome to today's press conference. This evening, we are going to have the Opening Ceremony. The topic of today is Beijing is ready. We are honored to invite Mr. Wang Wei, the executive vice president and secretary general of BOCOG. Mr. Wang Wei, please.

Wang Wei gives the speech

Wang Wei

Good morning everybody. Welcome to the Olympic Games. I would speak Chinese and English alternatively. Today is a big day for Beijing, China. It's the opening of the Olympic Games. The whole Chinese has been looking forward to this day. I will say that we are ready, Beijing is ready. First, in the hardware and infrastructure and all the venues are ready, including the media venues such as the IBC, MPC and the Media Village. Hopefully, you are enjoying your stay. We understand that things are not perfect but we are improving our work now.

I would like to have suggestion as to how we can do that. With regard to the people in the city, we have a lot of volunteers in the Games and also volunteers in the city. People in the whole city are ready to welcome the friends from all over the world. If you run into someone, you can ask them whether you speak English or not. Hopefully things will work well for you.

Last, we have sports for the Games. The preliminary football games have started. So far it started well. Hopefully things will work out for you. The preliminary football games have started. I think that so far they've gone well. People are excited about the Games and the Opening Ceremony tonight. I would not disclose much of the secret. But we did have three rehearsals to let people have glimpse of what it is going to be except for the most top secret one.

Now, I would like to open the floor. If you have any question, I will be more than happy to answer them. I don't think I am as well informed as you expected. You may have to tell me your agency and your name so that we can have a better interaction.

Australian reporter

The infrastructure on the venues and facilities, they are certainly exceptional. What I want to ask you is just to give us a little bit understanding; there has been some problems from the Australian team in regards to the buses for the roads that are not big enough. And we talked to some people who even struggled to talk to the taxi drivers to get to the athlete village? How is BOCOG dealing with the problem? And what is the turn around time? Is it going to be 24 hours or 48 hours? What is the plan time for BOCOG to have these resolutions?

Wang Wei

You are talking about the buses to the venues, sorry?

Australian reporter

There is no air conditioning on some buses and certainly, the sizes of some buses are small. And for the Australian Women's Basketball Team, they have incident where their bus actually get lost as well. So you know, what are you doing handling these problems. Obviously, you are ready up until today but there might be more logistic problems as you go.

Wang Wei

Well those questions are too specific. I think I will take notes of the questions. With regards to the air conditioning on bus, the big ones have air conditioning and the so do the small ones, depending on what kind of the buses you are riding in. So I will look into the issue about the Australian team. With regards to the taxi drivers, I think our taxi drivers are making great effort to learn English but certainly it is very limited. So they can be equipped with phone call. But I don't know if 100 percent taxies are covered. So we do equip the taxies with phone call service. If they have questions, they can make phone calls to get language service. I hope this kind of language services will satisfy some of our friends' demands and needs.

Foreign reporter

Good morning. What is happening right now, in terms of the last moment preparation for the Opening Ceremony? What kind of work has been done as we speak?

Wang Wei

I think the last minute will be the running through of the details. As you may be aware of, we have had three rehearsals. The last minute will be detailed connections of different items. Check all the details to get ready. Also we want to make sure the transportation will be going well, the city, the people flow. And as you know, we are going to have fireworks tonight. Some people will be watching TV, staying at home, and some people are lucky enough to have tickets to come to the stadium. Some people will go to the street to see the fireworks. A lot of things are being done to have a good control of the flow of people to make sure the Opening Ceremony is not only an excitement but also a safe and pleasant one.

Reporter from Republic of Korea

Yesterday (August 7), IOC President Rogge talked about the entry of teams of Republic of Korea and Democratic People's Republic of Korea one behind another instead of coming together. Specifically, during the Opening Ceremony, what is the order of Republic of Korea and Democratic People's Republic of Korea? Is it one after another? Is there another delegation between Republic of Korea and Democratic People's Republic of Korea? Would you elaborate a little bit more on the order of entry? Could you be more specific of the order of entry of Republic of Korea and Democratic People's Republic of Korea?

Wang Wei

The order is that the Republic of Korea is before Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and in between, there are 2 or 3 other NOCs. This is a technical issue. As you know, for the Chinese language, we used the number of strokes of the characters. So this is a technical matter to decide the order. I don't think that matters too much. Thank you.

BBC Radio

The 8th day of the 8th month of the 8th year is a very lucky date for China. I would like you to give me your thoughts about the slight luck you seem to have with the weather today. I'm sure you'd rather have all the magnificent stadiums and venues looked clearer that they do today. I wonder if you could give us a feeling of how you feel personally having finally arrived in this day after all the hard work and preparations.

Wang Wei

That is a very nice question. The 8th is a lucky number for the Chinese. But we chose this day not only because it's a lucky number. As you know, we prefer to have the day of the opening much later because of the weather conditions in Beijing. If it's in September, the climate will be much better not only for the people watching but also for the athletes. According to the international sports calendar, we have to set it like this. But it is still a lucky day. A lot of people wanted to get married today. It is not easy to meet this day. This is really lucky. Hopefully this will bring luck to the ceremony. According to the weather forecast, there will be light shower.

Outside the air quality is good, though looks a bit misty. We can not judge the air quality by its appearance but trust the finding. We have set up 27 stations for the air quality to determine how to take measures. I think tonight we will be lucky. Usually, if morning is misty, tonight will be much better weather. Let's have our fingers crossed and have a good time in the evening. I think I'm excited with my fellow workers. We are looking forward to a great Games. We sincerely welcome our media people and friends coming to Beijing to celebrate the great moment of the Olympic history. Thank you.

National Public Radio, USA

Given the conditions in the air, to what degree is the smog and to what degree is the haze. Are there any plans for the government to do anything else to clear up the skies? Second, is this what you hope for during the Opening Ceremony?

Wang Wei

Since 1998, we invested a lot to improve the air quality in Beijing. As of 1998, it's just 100 days of good days but this month we have 246 good days. For the mists in the air, I don't think we can do anything. It's up to the weather (in Chinese we call it "Lao tian ye" colloquially). The air quality not only depends on that in Beijing but is determined by the whole China. We are all working together to improve air quality, not only for the Chinese but to benefit the Chinese. Of course, we always hope for the best. So no matter how good it is, we always hope for the better.

National Public Radio, USA

There have been some concerns that some of the coal-fired factories south of here are creating some of the pollutions that is not Beijing. You have cut the cars by half, winds coming from the south, how have the provinces surrounding the capital done enough to clean up the air for the Olympics?

Wang Wei

We have a plan and we also have the Tsinghua University and Peking University involved to make a long term plan to improve our air conditions in the whole area. It's the collaboration between different provinces and cities. I can not say what they should do and what they should not do. I think according to the general plan, each city has their own needs and they know what is the interest in the whole area and particularly in the area they live in.