Qinhuangdao, one of the best-known summer resorts in China, has attracted tourists for a long time with its seaside views and rich cultural heritage. The city is only 280 km east of Beijing and it takes only about three hours to travel there by train or bus.

Beijing residents, including high government officials, often choose to spend their summer break there. The late Chinese leader Mao Zedong, in one of his best-known lines of poetry about Qinhuangdao in 1954, compared the towering waves he saw to the revolution the young republic had just experienced.

Qinhuangdao is the only Chinese city to be named after an emperor, the country's first emperor, Qinshihuang. In 215 B.C., six years after Qinshihuang unified the nation, he paid a visit to Qinhuangdao and sent people out to the sea to search for a medicine that could confer immortality. The city's other cultural treasure is a stretch of the Great Wall extending more than 300 km.

In 2000, the local government decided to give the city another boost by turning it into a sports center. The most important component of this campaign was its bid to be part of the 2008 Olympic Games, and in August of that year the city was selected as a co-host of the Olympics by the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games Bid Committee (BOBICO). The city was officially guaranteed that honor when Beijing won the bid in July 2001, making it the smallest of the six co-host cities in terms of size and population.

"We originally thought we could win the hosting rights for the sailing competitions since we had accumulated rich experience in this regard, such as the Asian Sailing Championship and national competitions," said Li Zhongyi, Vice Director of the Public Relations Division of the Qinhuangdao Olympic Office. "In 1990, when Beijing held the Asian Games, Qinhuangdao was in charge of the sailing competition, and the coordination with Beijing was marvelous. But our competitor city Qingdao campaigned really hard and we knew beforehand from an internal source that we would lose."

Though it was a huge disappointment, Yu Kang, Executive Deputy Director of Qinhuangdao Office of Football Prelimi-nary Venue, admitted that Qingdao was better known among officials of the International Olympic Committee and the preparation work in Qingdao has been proceeding very well.

"But we wouldn't let the opportunity go easily," Yu said. "Although we lacked experience in organizing soccer games, officials from BOBICO believed that we were capable of successfully hosting any event they gave us. That's why we applied again to host three events-soccer, beach volleyball and the ironman triathlon-and soccer is what we finally got."

The city will host 11 first-phase soccer games during the Olympics, including six between men's teams and five involving women's teams. This competition is expected to attract about 400 reporters from China and abroad.

Facilities are ready

The Olympic Center, consisting mainly of a soccer stadium, an indoor multipurpose stadium and several outdoor soccer training fields and tennis courts, is among the earliest completed Olympic venues for the 2008 Games. The stadium where the Olympic soccer games will be hosted was put into operation in June 2004.

About 35,000 seats are covered by a half-roof design. The white membrane roof, which is cost-efficient and environment-friendly, makes the whole facility look like a large seashell or a boat as seen from a bird's-eye view. This perfectly matches the surroundings, since the stadium is only about 500 meters from the sea. Besides bleacher seats, there are about 2,000 indoor seats for VIPs. An underground heating system has been installed under the field to protect the grass from the winter chill.

Instead of being designed solely for soccer, the facility also has a 400-meter track to make it more versatile. Since its completion, the Hebei Provincial Games and Qinhuangdao City Games have been held here.