QUFU, Shandong Province -- "The Beijing Olympic Games will be a successful one. And the city of Beijing will surprise its global guests," Hore Jeremy, chief technology integrator of the Beijing Olympic Games, told Xinhua before running the Olympic torch relay here Tuesday morning.
Jeremy, who has been staying in Beijing with his family for almost four years, said, "Before coming to China, people assume Beijing is a city full of buildings like the Temple of Heaven, the Lama Temple. But they will find Beijing also has such fantastic modern architectures as Bird's Nest and the Water Cube."
As an experienced integrator with years of service for the previous Games in Athens and Turin, Jeremy takes the lead on information, planning, management, system development and integration, service security, disaster recovery and training for the upcoming Games in Beijing, with the collaborative efforts from BOCOG Technology Department and other Olympic partners and sponsors.
The major work for Jeremy's team is to integrate, manage and maintain the security in the system which delivers information regarding the results of the competitions, the athletes and several other aspects of the Games, to the spectators and media around the world.
In comparison with the previous Olympics, there will be even more athletes, journalists, volunteers and other workers in Beijing. Another challenge is to build a very solid network between the central location Beijing and the other remote cities like Hong Kong and Qingdao.
With their knowledge and experience and nearly four years of fundamental work in China, Jeremy and his team were fully prepared for the challenges in 2008.
Now as a torchbearer, Jeremy is quite confident about his own work and the preparation made by BOCOG.
"The Beijing Olympic Games is surely to be a successful one," he said. "Chinese people will be proud of it. And it will give the whole world a good memory."
He added, "The Games will leave a huge legacy for Beijing, the infrastructure, education, environment; the people's Olympics, hi-tech Olympics, green Olympics, these concepts help Beijing to improve; and the theme of one world, one dream will leave the whole world a real legacy that is the world working together as one team."
A total of 100 torchbearers will participate in the 5.1-kilometer leg of the Olympic torch relay in Qufu. Torchbearers are from all walks of life, including athletes, bankers, salesmen, teachers and firefighters.
