An Olympic pin designing contest was launched on Friday,
welcoming people from all over China to share their ideas about the
Beijing Games.
The contest, lasting until June 30, will have its winners on
August 8 to mark the exact one-year countdown for the opening of
the Beijing Olympic Games.
All contestants can choose between the five categories in their
design, namely Olympic and Chinese culture, Olympic sports, torch
relay, Green Olympics as well as drawing whatever on your mind
about the Games. People can visit the Olympic channel on sohu.com
for contesting information.
"The contest is aimed at general public instead of professional
designers because we hope to involve more people with the
Olympics," said David Brooks, vice president of Coca-Cola (China)
which sponsors the contest.
"Not all the people can buy a ticket to watch the competition in
2008 but they can take their parts in the Games, for instance,
joining the pin design contest," he said.
Olympic pin trading has become a tradition since the first
modern Olympics in Athens, Greece where athletes, officials and
judges exchanged little round cards with their names and titles on
it.
Since 1988, each Olympics will have a pin trading center for
people to trade their pins, mainly made of metal nowadays, and make
friends. Beijing is not exception.
Brooks said Beijing should have more than one trading center
considering its large population.
"In Athens, we set up one center close to beach volleyball venue
but in Beijing, one is not enough," he said.
The Chinese capital has a population of around 16 million in
2005,?5 million more than that of Greece.
"So we plan to build two pin trading centers in Beijing and
there also will be trading sites in co-host cities," he said. Hong
Kong, Qingdao, Shenyang, Qinhuangdao, Tianjin and Shanghai are the
co-host cities of the Games.
(Xinhua News Agency May 21, 2007)