Athens: Beijing 2008 is laying it out with all its ethnic glamour and modern chic in Athens. Like any ambitious organiser, they are pushing publicity stuff around, and say, they plan 35 competition venues and 59 training centres.

Of the venues, 30 will be in Beijing —.15 new, 11 already exist, but will be renovated, and four will be temporary.

BCOG is being helped, quite like ATHOC, by a conglomerate of international and national companies, and all the help is being supplemented including highlighting the 3,000-year history of the city, 851 of which have been as China’s capital.

The very economics is of major scale in China, and more than their tradition, they are eager to project the country as not only a sporting giant, but also as an economic powerhouse. One interesting piece of statistic states that the total value of the industrial output for last year in Beijing alone was $12.3 billion and economic growth in the region has been maintained at about ten per cent for five consecutive years.

This is in stark contrast to the Greek venture. ATHOC’s ability to finish the venues and all other applications on time was mainly due to major overdrafts that has pushed the country in severe debt. The Greeks will be paying this off for years, maybe decades to come. China, being in autocratic rule, could well be avoiding this budget anomaly.

The publicity is very tourism oriented as well. The Beijing Asian Games, it is clear, was only the start to these attempts. The design of the National Stadium is extraordinary. It is an impressive structure looking like a prize packet tied in fancy strings or also like a bird’s nest. ‘Bird’s Nest’, in fact, is the nickname given to the stadium. It will have a seating capacity of 100,000 with about 20,000 temporary seats.

Along with the Chinese ventures, companies like McDonald’s, too, feature prominently in leaflets. This, surely, is the precursor to bigger business ahead. And in every sporting proposal, small or big, these days, big business is an integral part. Red China promises to be no different.