Olympic fever is running high and in less than four days the world turns its eyes to Beijing the host of this year’s event. The whole city is abuzz and thousands of people have been showing up at the rehearsals outside the National Stadium or Bird’s Nest in north Beijing. Reports say the fireworks display on Friday will be the biggest ever seen and beyond imagination!

The history of the Olympic Games originates more than a thousand years ago in ancient Greece. The Greeks (like the ancient Romans) believed the world and its people were playthings of the Gods. The people both revered and loathed them. Popular legend suggests that the Games (as it is more affectionately known) were created by Heracles, also-known-as Hercules, the son of God Zeus. He built the Olympic Stadium in Athens and the surrounding buildings in honour of his father. It is believed Heracles walked in a straight line for four hundred strides, calling this distance a ‘stadon, which soon became an actual calculation for distance and answers why a modern stadium track is four hundred metres in circumference.

China has been gearing up for the Games since it was chosen host city in 2001. The Chinese capital embarked on a massive construction effort readying itself for this global event.

From the onset, the city promised to host a ‘green’ Olympics, meaning to have an Olympic Games that is environmentally friendly. The ‘Bird’s Nest’ is an example of this green effort, equipped with a system of rainwater collecting pipes to water its infield grass. The National Aquatics Centre, blue in appearance and with a façade of huge bubbles, has its own high efficiency thermal polymer skin, which maintains the temperature inside at a suitable level. The Olympic Village contains solar-powered showers and all the streetlights have energy efficient bulbs.

One of the biggest concerns has been the air-quality in Beijing, which is unfortunately one of the worst in the world. To try and tackle this, since July 20, only half the city’s cars are allowed to drive each day. Licence plates ending with an even number alternate with those of an odd number. Also the smoke stacks and factories have been ordered to cut production by 30 per cent until after the Paralympics in mid-September. The government has also been experimenting with a man-made rain system that shoots rockets into the stratosphere to dissipate cloud and smog cover. To run the Olympics is not an easy thing it seems, but Beijing is ready and awaiting the world.

On August 8 at 8pm, let’s all remember what the Games stands for. An event with a history that spans millennia and rooted in the most simplest of premises, unity and honour through sport. Here’s to an amazing Olympics and best wishes to our Singaporean counterparts heading to the Middle Kingdom in hopes to bring back Olympic Gold. Beijing here we come!