China says Olympic Games venues are ready

BEIJING: The bird nest-shaped National Stadium for Olympics in the Chinese capital was on Saturday declared "fully operational", signaling the readiness of all the 37 venues for the Games in August.
    
The bowl-shaped stadium with girder-structured huge nest is the venue for the opening and closing ceremonies, track and field events, men's soccer and some paralympics events.
    
"The Bird's Nest is the last completed Olympic venue but the best," state-run Xinhua news agency quoted Tan Xiaochun, Chief Commander of the Bird's Nest project, as saying.
    
The stadium is designed by Herzong and DeMeuron of Switzerland and Chinese architect Li Xinggang.
    
The ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) said on Friday that China is "basically ready" for the Beijing Olympics and the country was confident of "doing a good job" during the Games and making it a "high-level event".
    
"The preparation work has been going on very well, and we are basically ready for the Games," the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau, presided over by Chinese President and party General Secretary Hu Jintao, which took stock of the final stage of preparatory work for the Olympics and Paralympics, was told.
    
Ahead of the meeting, the Chinese President had himself inspected Olympic-related transport facilities, visiting the airport rail link and Beijing South Railway station and the new Terminal 3 of the Beijing Capital International Airport on Wednesday.