March 30, 2006

Despite criticism, Beijing continues its rapid construction pace for the 2008 Olympics

BEIJING

Beijing’s already rapid pace of construction for the 2008 Olympics is moving into higher gear, with more workers being hired to stay on schedule.

Construction officials said work began on 20 of the 31 competition venues needed for the Games and the number of workers will rise from the current 17,000 to more than 30,000 in the middle of this year as more projects get under way.

The scale of this mammoth undertaking is evident at the National Stadium, the city’s signature project for the Olympics. More than 2,000 workers were assembling arched steel towers, some nearly 70 metres tall and 635 tonnes in weight, for the stadium’s exterior, whose shape and latticed frame resemble a bird’s nest.

“This is a crucial year,” said Jin Yan, deputy director of the Beijing office in charge of Olympic projects.

The goal for this year, Jin said, is to complete the main structures of all the venues so that all construction can be finished as scheduled by the end of 2007.

Beijing has been criticized for a seemingly frenetic pace of Olympic construction. Only 10 months ago, the International Olympic Committee urged Beijing to slow down in case venues are completed too early and run up additional operating expenses.

But Jin and other officials defended the pace as just right, given the complexity of staging the Olympics and Beijing’s ambitious plans.

“The details will decide whether we will succeed or fail, and now we’re getting down into the details,” Jin said.

Some of the larger showcase venues are using designs and materials that are cutting-edge for China, presenting technical problems that require a longer timeframe for construction, the officials said.

At the 91,000-seat National Stadium, for example, workers using detailed computer-generated blueprints have to assemble the massive steel towers on site, said Zhang Hengli, a deputy general manager with the state company that owns the stadium.

Next door, at the National Aquatics Centre, workers are laying a framework of steel pentagons and hexagons over which a futuristic translucent material, EFTE, will be stretched.

When completed, the centre will be the largest ETFE project in the world, said Kang Wei, general manager of the centre.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

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