Beijing marks Olympic Games first anniversary

Posted 08 19 2009 8:20PM

BEIJING (AFP) – China marked the first anniversary of the Beijing Olympics Saturday with an inaugural national sports day that saw up to 34,000 people gather for the world's largest martial arts exercise.

"We have established August 8 as National Fitness Day to fully embody... the government's loving concern for the life and prosperity of the people," Sports Minister Liu Peng said in an address outside the iconic Bird's Nest national stadium.

"This is a vivid reflection of the legacy that the Beijing Olympics has left for the people, the society and our system."

Liu's remarks came as nearly 34,000 people dressed in white silk performed "taiqiquan," or martial arts shadow boxing, in drizzling morning rain between the stadium and the Water Cube Aquatic Centre, both symbols of the Games.

Ranging in age from seven to 65, the shadow boxers, many performing on a bright red carpet, hope to set a Guinness world record for the largest martial arts exercise, organisers said.

A year after the Beijing Olympics, reminders of the Games' physical impact are visible throughout the capital, but so are signs of the many ways in which the event could not change China.

The city has a collection of state-of-the-art venues and can also point to the new Olympic subway lines that now transport millions of Beijingers to work.

"The successful hosting of the Olympic Games is the result of China's social and economic development," Cui Dalin, vice minister of the General Administration of Sports told AFP.

But there is also the choking smog that has returned, and the dissidents jailed in the past year for speaking out against a government that had promised "tremendous" human rights improvements in bidding for the Games.

Phelim Kine, an Asia researcher with New York-based Human Rights Watch, said China had seen "no real let-up in terms of controls on civil society" since the Games but rather an increasing intolerance of dissent.

Saturday night over 60,000 fans are expected to watch International Milan face rival Lazio in the first sporting event to be held in the Bird's Nest since the paralympics ended in September.

The stadium, made of a lattice of cement and steel, has largely served as a tourist attraction since the Games ended, prompting criticism that many costly Olympic venues are sitting idle and not being used for sporting events.

"For a city this size, in a country this size, (for) a capital city not to have international venues of (the) quality and capacity of the Bird's Nest would be totally unacceptable," local press quoted International Olympic Committee member Keven Gosper as saying.

Beijing officials said that up to 30,000 tourists a day visit the 100,000 seat stadium that hosted the opening and closing ceremonies of the Games, bringing in 210 million yuan (30 million dollars) in revenues over the last year.

A year after topping the gold medal table with a record 51 Olympic championships, China's sporting juggernaut remains in full gear as athletes strive to cement the nation's status as a world sporting powerhouse in London in 2012.

At the swimming world championships in Rome which finished last week, Chinese swimmers and divers won 11 gold medals and set two world records.

Since the Beijing Games, China has also dominated international events in table tennis and badminton, while the nation will host the All China National Games, a mini-Olympics, later this year.

"The spirit of the Olympics for the youth, especially those that volunteered for the Games ... is the biggest legacy," China's four-time table tennis Olympic champion Deng Yaping told AFP.

"The volunteer spirit is what China needs, we need people to give their love to society..., we want to encourage our young people with this kind of Olympic spirit."