By Xu Jing (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2007-08-10 09:27

Around 9am in August 5th, only six days away from the 2007 “Good Luck Beijing” SINOPEC Qingdao International Regatta, the Chinese, British, and French sailing teams arrived at the Olympic Sailing center and after the security check, they proceeded with the scheduled rehearsal.

After the rehearsal, the vice-secretary of the Olympic sailing committee Mr. Yuan Zhiping praised on the success of the rehearsal, but also requested that the problems which appeared in the rehearsal be fixed as soon as possible.

Members from the various sailing teams were not the only participates in the rehearsal, apart from the volunteers; members from the media community also played a role in the rehearsal. This year, the media work zone is located in the Athletes Center. Volunteers meet and greet members of the press at the front door of the center and direct them to the third floor for registration. As required, media boats and interviews must be applied for beforehand with the help of volunteers.

At the same time with the media rehearsal, the athletes from the three participating teams rehearsed the basic arrival and registration process, along with water training, boat placement and other processes.

As a new addition, this year’s competition includes prize awarding ceremony at sea and also steroids testing. The rehearsal for these new additions became the highlight of yesterday’s rehearsal.

The prize awarding ceremony platform is located very close to the audience. This not only allows the audiences the opportunity to interact with the athletes and view the boats, it can also increase the audiences’ interest in sailing.

The testing center for steroids testing is located at the Administrative Center. There are a total of four rooms: urine sample collection room (male), urine sample collection room (female), waiting room, and blood sample collection room. Qingdao is only responsible for collecting the samples, once the samples are collected, they will be delivered to Beijing for analyzing. Results should be available after two days. During the collecting process, athletes will be accompanied by a professional to prevent contamination and sample switching.