Teams will soon line up for the event in which South Africa won their sole gold medal of the previous Olympics — the 4x100m freestyle relay.
Hundreds of thousands of the migrant workers who built Olympic venues and beautified the city have already been sent home.
These are the first Olympic Games in which anticipation of the athletes’ feats has been overshadowed by speculation about the nature of the event.
Olympic football champions Argentina began the defence of their title on Thursday ahead of the Games’ opening ceremony on Friday.
Doves flew and confetti rained down as the Olympic torch was carried along the ancient Great Wall on a misty Thursday morning.
Flag-waving crowds cheered the torch relay through Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on Wednesday as Olympic fever mounted.
Norway produced an opening 2-0 upset win over defending champions the United States as women’s football launched the Beijing Olympics on Wednesday.
Michael Phelps’s quest for gold and glory is just one bid for Olympic history that will unfold in Beijing’s futuristic Olympic aquatic centre.
As thousands of visitors begin to arrive in China’s capital, large numbers of Beijing’s residents are disappearing from view.
China’s Olympic security operation makes the country look like a police state, according to the artist behind Beijing’s spectacular new stadium.
The Beijing Olympics will see the biggest anti-doping effort in history, but the omens for a drug-free Games are not good.
China lashed out on Thursday at the US for interfering in its affairs and insisted it would maintain restrictions on internet use during the Games.
The International Olympic Committee will investigate apparent censorship of the internet service provided for media covering the Beijing Olympics.
During the Olympic Games Gao Benxu hopes to brush up his English by opening up his apartment to a family visiting from abroad.
Haze that has covered Beijing for the last few days cleared on Tuesday as rain fell 10 days before the Olympics begin.
Beijing’s Olympic organisers are planning new emergency measures to reduce pollution after steps introduced a week ago failed to stop a grimy haze.
Avoid questions about income. Steer clear of religion and politics. And please, don’t ask foreigners visiting for the Olympics about their sex life.
Olympic host city Beijing was shrouded in haze on Monday 11 days before the Games begin, raising anxieties about whether it can deliver clean skies.
Beijing was blanketed in smog on Sunday, as a senior Chinese environmental official warned more measures might be needed to clear the capital’s air.
Police struggled on Friday to control surging crowds of more than 50 000 people desperate to grab the last Olympic tickets in Beijing.
The Australian Open, Roland Garros, Wimbledon and the US Open. And this year, a fifth Grand Slam: the Beijing Olympics.
Retired swimming great Ian Thorpe has dismissed American Michael Phelps’s bid to best Mark Spitz’s record haul of seven golds at an Olympic Games.
A whole series of problems that have proven tough to fix could give visitors an Olympic-sized headache.
Traffic in China’s capital was lighter on Monday but hazy skies still hovered over the Olympic host city 18 days before the Beijing Games.
Beijing’s biggest single source of pollution has been sacrificed to the Olympics and, this week, media were invited to a triumphant autopsy.
Yu Pingju has little Olympic cheer. If the government demolishes her house, she may have to watch the Beijing Games on the street.
Zhou Zhilian is one of thousands of entrepreneurs for whom the Olympic Games represent more a missed opportunity than a chance to cash in.
With a month remaining until the opening ceremony of one of the most scrutinised Olympic Games in history, the time has come for Beijing to deliver.
On a corner of the eastern extension of the Avenue of Eternal Peace, Beijing’s oldest and newest cultures lie in bizarre proximity.
Luo Jinquan is an unlikely poster boy for China’s spectacular economic development. A peasant from Yunnan, he he is a down-to-earth man of the soil.
Beijing’s notoriously foul-smelling and poorly tended public toilets will feature some rarely seen luxuries during the Olympics.
When Coroebus of Elis won the first Olympic sprint in 776 BC, the result was scratched on to parchment and read out in market places.