On November 14, the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG) unveiled the medals for the Paralympic Games of 2008. The design concepts of the medals echo those of the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, and convey the theme of "One World One Dream."

A jade disc is set into the obverse of each Beijing 2008 Paralympic medal, and the emblem of the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games is found at the center of the jade disc. On the reverse side are the emblem of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), the name of the event and "Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games" in Chinese, English and Braille.

The color of jade varies with the medal: white jade for the gold medal; gray-white jade for the silver medal; and gray jade for the bronze medal.

"We Chinese traditionally use jade to represent good virtue. Using this special material in the medals of the Paralympic Games vividly interprets Chinese national values. It's a perfect combination of the Chinese nation and the Paralympic Games," said Hang Hai, a professor with the the Central Academy of Fine Arts and also one of the chief designers of the medals.

"The design of the medals embodies the spiritual strength of the Paralympic athletes and represents the harmony and peace of human beings," Hang added.

The materials, weight, measurements and patterns of the Paralympic medals strictly follow all guidelines set out by the IPC. In its letter of approval, the IPC relayed a congratulatory message regarding the design program for the medals.

Extensive research and planning for the medal design for the Paralympic Games of 2008 began in November 2006. The final design was chosen from 21 draft works submitted by the design group, which had studied designs from past Paralympics.

Using the successful designs for the Beijing Olympic Games as their template, specific designers were invited to create the "look" and "feel" of the Beijing 2008 Paralympic medals, including designers from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, the Academy of Fine Arts at Tsinghua University and China Banknote Printing and Minting Corporation.

All of the designers had originally submitted entries in the original campaign for the Beijing Olympic Games medals.

On December 7, 2006, a meeting was held to launch the medal design competition. Through December 31, 2006, the aforementioned organizations submitted a total of 21, two-dimensional designs. On January 9, 2007, at the invitation of BOCOG, leading Chinese experts and scholars from the arts, sculpture, minting and Paralympic sports appraised the 21 pieces of work.

BOCOG then asked the relevant organizations to make modifications and improvements to the designs. BOCOG and the IPC approved the final deigns on September 20 and October 11, 2007.

"At the beginning, we wanted the Paralympic medals to be different from the Olympic medals, at least in shape. But we had a consensus to use jade as it is a symbol of Chinese culture," said Hang. At last, Hang and his team decided to follow the medals of the Olympic Games for the reason that the two games share the same spirit.

Olympics Briefs

Medal production

According to the medal producer for the 2008 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Beijing, the BHP Billiton, a global resources company, will produce more than 50,000 medals before June 2008. The medal production is expected to consume 13 kg of gold, 1.3 ton of silver and 6.9 tons of bronze.

There are 1,000 gold, silver and bronze medals needed for the two games. Some 40,000 souvenir medals are needed for the 2008 Olympic and 10,000 for the Paralympic Games.

The Australia-based BHP Billiton became medal sponsor for the Sydney Olympics in 2000. The company signed a contract with BOCOG in 2005 to sponsor the Beijing Olympics and began to provide raw materials for the medal production.

The company's Cannington mine in Queensland, Australia, and its Escondida and Spence operations in Chile will provide the materials needed to produce the gold, silver and bronze medals for the Games.

Foreign language speaking volunteers sought for Beijing Olympics

Although the number of applicants (730,000) has surpassed the required amount, more foreign language speakers are needed to offer volunteer services for the Beijing Olympic Games, according to the Office of the Volunteer Work Coordination Group for the Beijing Olympic Games.

The office sincerely invites people of all circles who can communicate in any of the foreign languages chosen by BOCOG and meet the volunteer requirements to seize the opportunity to register as volunteers. The departments concerned will go on a new round of selection and testing processes in mid December.

The Beijing Olympic Games are expected to provide services in 55 languages. They are English, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Japanese, Portuguese, German, Korean, Italian, Greek, Polish, Hungarian, Czech, Romanian, Serbian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovak, Thai, Turkish, Persian, Danish, Lithuanian, Hebrew, Azerbaijani, Norwegian, Latvian, Armenian, Vietnamese, Mongolian, Slovenian, Hindi, Georgian, Macedonian, Indonesian, Amharic, Lao, Estonian, Albanian, Farsi, Icelandic, Pilipino, Cambodian, Burmese, Moldavian, Catalan, Luxemburgish, Bosnian, Dutch, Finnish, Swedish, Bulgarian, Malay and Urdu.

Teachers and students in Beijing's universities, including foreign students (teachers) can register at the Chinese Communist Youth League of their universities, while other people can register online at the website of any of Beijing's 18 districts or counties.

Monitor Food Safety

China has established two electrical monitoring networks using a website platform to guarantee food safety during the Beijing Olympic Games, according to Li Yuanping, an official in charge of the safety of imported and exported products at the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.

The China product quality monitoring website is a public information platform where people can inquire about product quality and food security. Every product on the website has an electrical monitoring code.

By sending text messages, calling, and searching on the Internet, consumers can judge whether a product is real or fake. Five licensed Olympic food suppliers in Beijing have joined the network.

Li said that all the Olympic food would be included in the product quality-monitoring network to guarantee food safety.