China Daily 0724 A12.Indd

ЁЁ೑᮹᡹ᦤկϔキᓣ㔥キᓎ䆒᳡ࡵ೑᮹᡹ᦤկϔキᓣ㔥キᓎ䆒᳡ࡵ ᑈᇍ໪Ӵ᪁㒣偠ˈᔎ໻ⱘ㣅᭛䞛㓪ಶ䯳 31 ᑈ㔥キᓎ䆒ग़⿟ˈܼᮍԡၦԧ᥼ᑓᑇৄ 17 China Daily English e-solutions provider for government institutions and enterprises Te l : 86 10-6499 5810 / 6499 5814 olympicsPAGE 12 | TUESDAY, JULY 24, 2012 CHINADAILY.COM.CN/WORLD CHINA DAILY Games popular among urbanites than 40 are more interested in Service is the sole authorized Other travel agencies in Survey says young viewers are the Games. About 64 percent ticket reseller of the London China prefer organizing trav- of people ages 18-39 said the Olympic Games on the Chi- el tours to Britain, including especially excited for Olympics Games interested them, while nese mainland. visiting the Olympic venues only half of those 40-60 said so. Caissa’s president Chen aft er, rather than during, the Seven in 10 male respon- Xiaobing said the London Games. By HE DAN That’s about 15 percentage dents said they have kept a close Organizing Committee of “It is too expensive to visit [email protected] points higher than the national eye on the London Olympics. the Olympic and Paralympic Britain during the Olympic average. Liu Guang, a 26-year-old Games has distributed 18,000 Games because the cost is More than half of urban The survey was conducted Guangzhou resident, said he tickets on the Chinese main- about 30 percent, or even 40 respondents in China said they by Horizon Research and cannot wait to watch the Games. land. His agency bought 2,000 percent, higher than usual,” are interested in the 2012 Lon- Horizonkey, which is based in “I’m curious about whether additional tickets through oth- said Li Meng, deputy general don Olympic Games, accord- Beijing. Liu Xiang can make it to the er sources, including Prestige manager of the China Inter- ing to a survey China Daily More than 3,100 residents 110m hurdles and what his per- Ticketing, according to a news national Travel Service’s out- obtained on Monday. in 10 Chinese cities, including formance will be like,” he said. release on the agency’s offi cial bound travel department. Residents in Guangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai and Guang- “And I bet the US men’s bas- website on Friday. He said the expense during capital of Guangdong province, zhou, were polled. ketball team will be the cham- Badminton, basketball and the Games discouraged most are the most enthusiastic about Respondents said they were pion again.” track and field are the most Chinese tourists. the London Olympics. About most excited about the open- About 2 percent of those sur- attractive events for Chinese Th e agency normally charg- 75 percent of those polled in ing ceremony, followed by the veyed said they will travel to tourists, he said, adding that es 20,000 yuan ($3,130) for a HUANG XIAOBING / FOR CHINA DAILY Guangzhou said they have paid sports events and relays. London for the Olympics. there are about 3,000 tickets nine-day trip from China to A child runs by a painting portraying competitive bicyclists close attention to the Games. Urbanites who are younger Caissa International Travel remaining. Britain, he added. during an Olympic art exhibition in Beijing. brieﬂ y BADMINTON Li to start title defense against Irishman Olympic champion Lin Dan will launch his bid for back-to-back gold medals against unseeded Irishman Scott Evans following the draw for the men’s singles badminton competition on Monday. Th e world No 1 from China — who is seeded two for the Olympics behind Malaysia’s Lee Chong Wei — is the heavy favorite to clinch his second gold medal when the tournament starts at Wembley Arena on Saturday. Lin’s second-seed status in London is something of an anomaly, with the seedings for the event being decided aft er he had made a temporary slip to world No 2 in the rankings. Top seed Lee, meanwhile, opens against Ville Lang of Finland, who progressed to the third round at Beijing four years ago. ATHLETICS Kluft out with hamstring injury Former Olympic heptathlon champion Carolina Kluft will miss the London Games aft er suff ering a hamstring injury on Sunday, her coach said. Th e 29-year-old Kluft , who switched to the long jump aft er a glit- tering career in heptathlon, suff ered the injury while competing in Kuortane, Finland. “Th ere will be no Olympics for ‘Carro,’” Oscar Gidewall told Radio Sweden. “It’s not her shin that put a stop to it today, even if she feels it a little, she has a problem with a tender hamstring that she hasn’t felt for several years.” Kluft ran through the sandpit on her fi rst jump on Sunday and took no further part in the competition. EQUESTRIAN Injured horse costs Rose his berth Australian horseman Shane Rose suff ered Olympic heartbreak once again on Sunday aft er he was forced to pull out of the London Games due to an injury to his mount Taurus. Team vets left the decision until the last minute to give the horse ONE LAST HURDLE BEFORE THE HURDLES every possible chance of recovering from the soft -tissue injury to its PHOTO BY ADRIAN DENNIS / AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE left front leg, but decided not to risk it given the rigors of the Olympic three-day eventing competition. US athlete Aries Merritt trains during a visit to Alexander Stadium, home of the US track and fi eld training camp, in Rose tasted similar disappointment in 1996, when his horse Mr Joe Cool went lame just before the Atlanta Games. He struggled to contain Birmingham on Monday ahead of the 2012 London Olympic Games. Merritt is one of the title favorites in the men’s his emotions at a news conference, and conceded he cannot get away from London quickly enough. 110-meter hurdles, along with Chinese track star Liu Xiang. On Friday, Merritt ran a world-leading time of 12.93 sec “It was pretty devastating,” said Rose, who won team silver in Beijing. “I was really starting to get excited thinking not much could go wrong. for the third time this year to confi rm his credentials as a serious contender for the gold medal in London. Th is morning it was a pretty hollow feeling.” SOCCER Brazilian team staying out of trouble Brazil’s Olympic soccer squad is opting for a quiet life away from Haiti’s team in London isn’t very Haitian the “temptations” of the Athlete’s Village, coach Mano Menezes said on Sunday. The young squad is under huge pressure back home to win the country’s fi rst Olympic soccer gold and Menezes believes it has a bet- By ASSOCIATED PRESS ter chance of doing that from a secluded hotel in the Hertfordshire triple jumper, is from New about athletes from multi- vidual medal was a silver won countryside outside the capital. in Port-au-Prince, Haiti York and roomed with Zuck- ethnic nations like the United by Silvio Cator in the men’s “Th ere are too many temptations here,” he said with a smile as he erberg at Harvard. He was States or Britain representing long jump at the 1928 Amster- spoke to reporters in the sunshine during a visit to the Village at the Four of Haiti’s five Olym- the 14th person to sign up for other countries. But what may dam Olympics. Cator today is Olympic Park. pians at the London Games Zuckerberg’s social network- be surprising to some is that remembered with pride, and While players shopped for Olympic souvenirs in the Village megastore, Menezes continued: “Some of the players like Neymar and the others have something in common ing site. Haiti, which seems to lurch the national stadium in down- have already been the focus of attention from so many other athletes — they’re not from Haiti. Laine recently graduated from one calamity to another, town Port-au-Prince is named when we’ve been here and we have serious work to do at these Games.” With millions of Haitians liv- from Georgetown Law School is being represented in London aft er him. ing on $2 a day or less and hun- but hopes to use the attention at all. Another notable Olympian REUTERS- AFP dreds of thousands of people generated by the Olympics to The country does pose from Haiti was marathon run- rendered homeless by a dev- form a nonprofi t group called unusual challenges for ath- ner Dieudonne Lamothe, the astating earthquake two years the Jump for Haiti Founda- letes. Th ree of the country’s fi rst from his country to com- ago, the country struggles to tion, a sports program that five competitive running pete in four Olympics. produce world-class athletes. would try to produce future tracks are home to thousands More medals in London will But those with Haitian links are Olympic athletes from the of people in tents and shan- be tough. still eager to represent the small country through camps and ties who were displaced by “I don’t think so, but I think Caribbean country. clinics. The goal is to have the January 2010 earthquake. we’ll have two athletes in the “I still feel Haitian even if I future teams made up of The office of the Haitian fi nals,” Jean-Pierre said. wasn’t born there,” 21-year-old athletes who were born and Olympic Committee over- Frederic Charles, a 29-year- sprinter Marlena Wesh said in raised in Haiti. looks a hillside shantytown old computer technician and a telephone interview with Th e Laine said he plans to call and has a budget of only the half brother of Olympic Associated Press.

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