RECORD BREAKER: Famous U.S. swimming athlete Michael Phelps wins 200 meters freestyle at U.S. Olympic swimming trials on July 1 in Omaha, Nebraska. He is bid to surpass Mark Spitz’s record of seven gold medals at the Beijing Olympic Games

All the lights were on in Qiu jiduan Gymnasium at Beijing Normal University (BNU) on July 17, just three weeks before the start of the Summer Olympic Games. Workers were performing a final test on the lighting system in the newly built sports complex that will serve as the exclusive training headquarters for the U.S. Olympic team.

The gymnasium, which has an area of 16,000 square meters, is named after Qiu Jiduan, a university alumnus who donated 20 million yuan ($2.93 million) to the project. It took about two years to build the facility, which cost more than 100 million yuan ($14.64 million). The gymnasium has five floors with three above ground that provide tennis, basketball and volleyball courts, a gymnastics area, swimming pool and track.

"It's a fantastic gymnasium. Everything is first-class," Kevin Han, Manager of the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) Sports Partnerships, told Xinhua News Agency on July 19.

The USOC signed an agreement with BNU in early 2007 to build a high performance center and training headquarters at the university for American athletes to prepare for the Beijing Games. The USOC planned to spend $500,000 on the center for housing, training and dining facilities.

After the USOC selected BNU for the center's site, Steve Roush, the organization's Chief of Sport Performance, said, "It allows the U.S. Olympic athletes to train in conditions that are conducive to high performance, and it provides the comforts of home with great facilities, good restaurants and sleeping space for our team before the Games."

Besides the state-of-the-art sports complex, the university also provides a convenient location in northwest Beijing that is only about a 15 minutes' drive to the Olympic Village.

Working out

The U.S. athletes started moving into the center on July 25 to acclimate themselves prior to the Games. According to the USOC, about two thirds of the over 600-member U.S. athlete delegation of more than 20 teams will use the facilities at BNU to prepare for the Summer Games that run on August 8-24.