Nation celebrates one-year countdown to the 2008 Games (photo attached)

Scene of the press conference

(BEIJING, August 1) -- What a night it will be!

A total of 63 events will be held across the country to honor the one-year countdown to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, which will open in China's Olympic City at 20:00 on August 8, 2008.

The events will be categorized into four parts:

-- Theme activities organized by the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG);

-- Activities organized by the Beijing municipal government;

-- Community activities in Beijing, and

-- Activities in Olympic co-host cities and across the nation

From August 4-8, BOCOG will sponsor a variety of Olympic-themed activities, including:

-- The IOC Olympic treasure exhibition;

-- The 2008 Olympic landscape sculpture exhibition;

-- Smiling Beijing volunteer activities, and

-- Football competitions among Olympic sponsors.

The 10 families selected to tour Beijing (five from China and five from around the world), through the "Olympic Families Tour Beijing" promotion - will embark on their official Olympic tour.

In addition, the theme song We Are Ready, written and composed for the Olympic Games one-year countdown, will be released.

The highlight of the night's celebration will be from 19:00-21:10, at Tian'anmen Square where senior members of the International Olympic Committee will send invitations to more than 200 National Olympic Committees around the world to gather in Beijing for the start of the Games of the XXIX Olympiad

This event marks the first time that such a significant ceremony is held at the host city of the Olympic Summer Games, other than the IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Chinese leaders, IOC senior officials, chefs de missions and representatives of the NOCs, ambassadors, and representatives of the Olympic sponsors, will join a crowd of nearly 10,000 in the gala celebration, which will be broadcast live on CCTV to the whole nation.

Other activities in the Olympic City, such as the public fitness activities, forums, exhibitions, musical instrument competitions, will feature mass participation, while the celebrations in the co-host cities as well as other parts of China will ignite the Olympic passion of the Chinese people and nation.