新西蘭英語(yǔ) 52 End of the Beijing Olympics

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The Beijing Olympics ended on the same high note as it began. The opening and closing ceremonies were amazing, finishing with a large display of fireworks that went on and on. During the Games, everything worked well too. That included the accommodation, transport, beautiful venues to hold the different sports, a huge number of volunteers, and superb organisation.

At the closing ceremony, the chief of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, said that the world had learned more about China, and China had learned more about the world. China surprised the world by winning more gold medals than any other country and some of the medals were in events that were not traditional for Chinese like swimming. Also interesting was that more Chinese women than men won medals.

At the end of the closing ceremony, the Olympic flag was handed to the organisers of the next Olympics in London in 2012. London had 100 organisers present at the closing ceremony. The London Olympics organiser, Sebastian Coe, said that they were like young children waking up to see snow for the first time. They could hardly believe what they were seeing.

Coe said the London Olympics would not be so big because they have a limited budget. China spent around NZ$60 billion. The main stadium in London will have 80,000 seats for the Games but 55,000 of them will be temporary, leaving a stadium for 25,000 people after the Games. Coe said that one of the important things for London was to provide long-term benefits, with transport and facilities for Londoners for many years afterwards.

The London organisers are planning new fast trains that will take people from central London to the Olympic Park in just 7 minutes. They also hope to use the river Thames to transport people to the venues.

New Zealanders should feel quite happy with the performance of our athletes at the Beijing Olympics. We gained 3 gold medals, 1 silver and 5 bronze medals. In the last four years, Sport and Recreation New Zealand – SPARC – has put $60 million into sailing, athletics, triathlon, cycling and rowing to help these people to do well in the Olympics. These are the sports which won medals for New Zealand. Now SPARC has to decide whether to continue to support these sports for the next Olympics.