BEIJING, (Xinhua) -- Here are some interesting figures and facts about the 2008 Olympic Games being held in Beijing from August 8th to 24th. NEW AIRPORT TERMINAL: Beijing's brand new airport terminal (T3) is 790 meters wide, three kilometers long and has a floor area of a million square meters, equivalent to 140 football fields. It took 25 billion yuan (3.7 billion U.S. dollars), 1.8 million cubic meters of concrete, 50,000 workers and four years to build. It will be used by 60 million passengers a year, almost equivalent to the entire population of France. BEIJING OLYMPIC TORCH: The Beijing Olympic torch, made of aluminum, is 72 centimeters high and weighs 985 grams. It can withstand winds of up to 65 kilometers per hour and stay alight in rain of up to 50 millimeters an hour.
The pool at the National aquatics Center is called the "Water Cube" LONGEST-EVER TORCH RELAY: The Games has the longest-ever Olympic torch relay, comprising of 137,000 kilometers journey across the world, including a trip to the top of the world's highest peak, Mount Everest. The next longest Olympic torch relay was prior to the 1996 Atlanta Games, roughly a quarter of the distance, while the shortest is the one before the1976 Montreal Olympics, only 775 km. "WATER CUBE": The pool at the National aquatics Center, or "Water Cube," is 13 meters deep and heated to exactly 28 degrees Celsius, said to be the optimum temperature for swimmers. "BIRD'S NEST": National Stadium. The woven girder stadium, covering 20.4 hectares, can accommodate an audience of up to 91,000. "OLYMPIC GREEN": All the main Olympic venues are housed in the Olympic Green, a 760-hectare park containing 500,000 trees. It is more than two times the size of New York's Central Park, which covers 340 hectares.
