Shenzhen Universiade to open on Friday

Updated: 2011-08-11 20:24

(Xinhua)

SHENZHEN - The 26th Summer Universiade is set to open on Friday in Shenzhen, a young and energetic city in South China.

"With just one day to go, I can say Shenzhen Universiade would be the biggest in history," said Huang Guoqiang, a spokesman of the Shenzhen Universiade.

A total of 306 events from 24 sports would be held, making the largest number of events in Universiade history. 11,901 athletes and officials from 152 delegations had confirmed their arrival until Thursday.

According to the organizers, Shenzhen had got ready for the biggest-ever sporting event held in the city. The opening ceremony is ready, and the supporting measures including catering, traffic and medical services aree all on their marks.

"Start here -- Make a difference" is the core concept of the Universiade. As introduced by Shi Gang, deputy director of the ceremony, the ceremony would be adhere to the concept.

"The length of the ceremony will be controlled within 120 minutes," said Shi," and there are cultural activities before and after the ceremony."

It would rain a little bit during the opening ceremony, but the rain wasn't going to be heavy enough to disturb the schedule of the ceremony.

In term of catering, organizers vowed to avoid any food accident during the event.

"The organizing committee has set a goal of 'zero accident', 'zero outage' and 'zero complaint' for the Universiade food service," said Wang Mei, a spokes woman from the organizing committee. "At the same time, we are to avoid any poison, drug or deterioration on food."

About 400,000 cars will not be on road during the Universiade in order to relieve the traffic pressure, while medicines and medical equipment worthy of about 10,000,000 yuan ($1.6 million)  had been prepared for the medical demands.

According to the latest data from the organizing committee, a total of 3,156 journalists from 331 media organizations around the world had registered to cover the Games.

About Shenzhen

Shenzhen is located at the southern tip of the Chinese mainland on the eastern bank of the mouth of the Pearl River and neighbors Hong Kong.

The brainchild of Deng Xiaoping, the country's first special economic zone was established here by the Chinese Government in 1980. It has been a touchstone for China's reform and opening-up policy since then.