Beijing's Olympic venues

The opening ceremony for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing will take place on 08/08/08 - the number eight is regarded as lucky in China. Here are some of the 31 venues that will stage the Games

The awe-inspiring National Stadium is the centrepiece. Dubbed the 'Bird's Nest', the unique structure will seat 91,000 spectators and host the opening and closing ceremonies and athletics events

The National Aquatics Centre is known as the 'Water Cube' and uses tetrakaidecahedra-shaped (14-sided) cells to maximise space. It houses 17,000 spectators and uses solar energy to heat the pools

The 19,000-capacity National Indoor Stadium will host artistic gymnastics, trampolining and handball. Like many of Beijing's other venues, it has staged test events in the run-up to the Games

The Laoshan Velodrome seats 6,000 and is in Shijingshan, west Beijing. Its outstanding feature is its spectacular dome-shaped roof. The mountain bike and BMX events will take place nearby

BMX is the newest Olympic sport and will take place at the purpose-built Laoshan BMX complex. It hosted the BMX Supercross World Cup last August, where Britain's Shanaze Reade won the women's event

Chaoyang Park, which will host the beach volleyball, is one of nine temporary venues. It can hold 12,000 spectators and staged the 2007 FIVB Beach Volleyball Women's Challenger event last August

Wrestling will take place at the China Agricultural University Gymnasium. The 8,000-capacity venue took two years to build and hosted wrestling's junior world championships in August 2007

Beijing organisers decided to stage the equestrian events in Hong Kong because they were uncertain they would be able to create an equine disease-free zone on the mainland

The coastal city of Qingdao, which is 516 miles from Beijing, hosts the sailing. The Qingdao International Regatta in 2007 was a big success for the British team, who won five of the 11 events

The Beijing Workers' Stadium will host the football. One of the Ten Great Buildings built in 1959 for the 10th anniversary of the People's Republic of China, it seats 70,000 and was renovated in 2004

The weightlifting will be held in the Beijing University Gymnasium, another existing venue which has been upgraded for the Olympics. It seats 5,400 spectators and has staged a test event

The Fengtai Softball Field has a capacity of 13,000 and was one of the venues for the 1990 Asian Games and the 1992 Women's Softball World Cup Championships. It was renovated in 2006

The Beijing Science and Technology University Gymnasium is a new building which has 8,000 seats, including 4,000 temporary ones, and will host the judo and taekwondo events

The Beijing Workers' Indoor Arena played host to the World Table Tennis Championships in 1961. For the Olympics, it has been turned into a boxing venue with space for 13,000 spectators

The Olympic Green Hockey Field is another of the nine temporary venues to be used at the Games. It can seat 17,000 fans and will be taken down after the Olympics

British athletes will spend time preparing for the Games in Macau - one of two special administrative regions (along with Hong Kong) of the People's Republic of China - on the South China Sea

Team GB will move on from Macau to the Olympic Village, which will provide accommodation for 16,000 athletes and officials during the two weeks of the Games

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