China kick-started its Olympic year with a New Year party on Monday with the country's biggest medal hope on hand to watch fireworks, singing and dancing at a countdown party.
The party, put on by the organizers of the Summer Olympics, saw Beijingers flock in the cold to the Millennium Monument, capping a year in which frenzied construction of ultramodern Olympic venues and other projects changed the face of Beijing.
A cheer went out from the crowd for Liu Xiang. As the Beijing Games get closer, public expectations have grown on Liu to repeat his gold-medal winning performance in the 110m hurdles at the 2004 Athens Olympics Games.
All but one Olympic project, the ambitious 91,000-seat National Stadium scheduled to be finished by March, has been completed, officials said recently.
Scores of laborers worked around the clock to ensure timely completion of the projects -- from archery ranges, to a swimming venue that is covered by a translucent, blue-toned skin, to gymnasium halls, dotted mostly around the north of the city.
Also at hand at the Millennium Monument, a circular raised stone edifice in west Beijing, was movie star Jackie Chan.
From today, there are 219 days left until the start of the Aug. 8 to Aug. 24 Olympics.
A source of immense national pride in China, Beijing is spending an estimated US$40 billion to modernize for the Olympics. Attended by US President George W. Bush and an estimated 500,000 to 800,000 foreign visitors, Beijing will be under the world's gaze as never before.
Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) said in a live television address broadcast on Monday that he hopes the Olympics will be a platform for "promoting understanding and friendly cooperation between the people of China and the world."
The Games have also provided an impetus to a full-scale redesign of Beijing, with ultramodern buildings changing its centuries-old look. American soprano Kathleen Battle and Chinese pianist Lang Lang played at the newly opened and futuristic egg-shaped National Center for the Performing Arts on Monday evening, right next to Tiananmen Square -- long symbolizing the center of power in the communist state.
In winning the Olympics in 2001 China promised it would allow greater media freedoms, improve human rights and clean up its environment.
But air pollution is still a worry for Beijing. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has said it might reschedule events if smog levels are too high.
Jammed traffic and the possibility of protests by critics of the communist regime are also concerns.
Human rights groups such as Amnesty International, as well as media advocacy groups and others, want the IOC to go further and promote human rights in China in line with what they believe is the spirit of the Olympic Charter.
Statements in the past few months have criticized the lack of human rights and press freedoms in Beijing, which is also under fire for a perceived lack of action on pushing the Sudan government to do more to end the crisis in Darfur.
A series of arrests of dissidents this year, continued clampdown on free speech, as well as forced evictions of residents living on Olympic sites, have increased accusations China is not doing enough to come through with its promises.
More than 7 million tickets will be sold for the Beijing Olympics.
A series of test events over the last four months in Beijing mostly went off without a hitch. Successful test events were also held at Olympic venues outside Beijing, with an equestrian competition in Hong Kong and sailing in Qingdao on China's eastern coast.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB