北京奥运会最受关注的两个新建场馆——国家体育场“鸟巢”和国家游泳中心“水立方”将在明年4月和2月分别正式亮相。今年8月在北京举办的“好运北京”系列赛事的首场比赛也即将打响。在42项比赛中，包括“鸟巢”和“水立方”在内的所有奥运场馆都将揭开神秘面纱，同时有实力在明年奥运会上夺冠的选手也将在“好运北京”中预演。

The National Stadium under construction (File, May 1, 2007) Photo credit: XINHUA

The "Bird's Nest" and the "Water Cube," two major competition venues² for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, will be unveiled in April and February 2008 respectively as they will host several "Good Luck Beijing" sports events at that time.

Among the 42 high-level sports events to be held ahead of the next summer's Olympics, 16 will be staged in the first five months of 2008. The National Stadium, dubbed³ the "Bird's Nest," will be the venue¹ for the IAAF Race Walking Challenge from April 18-19 and the 2008 China Open Marathon on April 20.

On the other hand, the National Aquatics⁴ Center, also called the "Water Cube," will hold the China Open swimming event from February 1-5, the World Cup diving from February 19-24, and the Olympic qualification synchronized⁵ swimming from April 16-20.

Many other sports events such as canoe-slalom, beach volleyball, tennis, handball and equestrian⁶ also have been arranged at the Olympic venues to test the preparations for next August's Olympic Games.

For that reason the new venues have become attractive to world's top level athletes. The international sport federations⁷ also want to use the pre-Games events to promote their sports. The champion hopefuls of the 2008 Olympics may appear in the venues if they participate in the "Good Luck Beijing" events.

The "Good Luck Beijing" events are the games of the different international sport federations so that their marketing⁸ bears "personalized" characteristics and the organizers must abide⁹ by the relevant rules and regulations in their marketing activities.

From December 13-19 the ITTF Pro-Tour Grand Finals are scheduled to be held in Peking University Gymnasium, an Olympic venue too. The ITTF has signed a sponsorship agreement with an enterprise which won the relevant market rights. As the organizer of the ITTF event, the Chinese Table Tennis Association must honor the ITTF marketing rules and regulations, BOCOG Executive Vice-President Yang Shu'an was quoted as saying.

Vocabulary:

canoe-slalom：激流划船

ITTF Pro-Tour Grand Finals：国际乒联职业巡回赛总决赛