Sebastian Coe, head of the London 2012 Games, said in an interview with Reuters that the Beijing Summer Olympics next year was already proving to be a catalyst for change in China.

"Beijing is a city that is looking outwards" he said. "The Games has been a catalyst for change that is already very apparent."

Coe said he had noticed on his visits to China the physical effects of change, including city regeneration and the tackling of pollution in one of the world's most populated cities.

But he said there would be social changes too as China eases restrictions on the media for the period in and around the Games, which open on August 8 next year.

Asked whether China would have to accept that once restrictions were lifted they would be almost impossible to re-impose, Coe said: "There is a recognition in China that this is almost certainly the case. There is a real thirst for understanding what this whole process is about. It can probably only go in one direction once the Games has helped make this change."

But Coe said social changes were not the prime purpose of the Olympics.

"It's not for the International Olympic Committee to dictate the rate of change on the potential direction of that country. What I suppose I'm saying is that sport inherently does that anyway.

"I could make a very good case for saying that any number of Olympic cities have not just mirrored society -- the Olympic movement, on occasions, has set its trends."

Coe said he was impressed by what he had seen of Beijing's preparations.

"It's been pretty spectacular. They did what every host city has to do -- get out of the traps very quickly. Seven years go by very quickly. They got off very well.

"They have a lot of structures already in place which is always helpful. They give Beijing the feeling of being an Olympic City. Each time I go back to Beijing it feels more and more like a city moving in on the great celebration."

Coe, who won four Olympic medals as an athlete, two of them gold, at the 1980 Moscow and 1984 Los Angeles Games, added: "The Beijing Games will be spectacular, very well organised. Their venues are absolutely spectacular too."

He said London faced a tough job following Beijing as the next venue for the Summer Games and would learn many lessons from the Chinese, but he said his organising committee would not try to copy the 2008 model.

"We will reflect all that is good in the Games but in a very British perspective. All Games have their own unique perspective.

"All the good Games, either in their opening ceremonies or in the way they have conducted the Games, have enough that is uniquely domestic and enough that has really reached out and that is what we are extraordinarily good at.

"I don't think any Games goes out to ape what had happened before. It's not what sports audiences are looking for."