NANJING, East China, Oct. 23 (Xinhuanet) -- Having packed all the luggage and paraphernalia, Liu Xuhui stepped into a taxi and got ready for flying back to Beijing and embarked on another period ofreporting in Chinese sports.

    "Although there were some inconvenience, the organizing works of the 10th National Games were much better than I expected." saidLiu, a sportswriter of Beijing Times who also covered the Athens Olympics in 2004.

    In Jiangsu, an eastern Chinese province known of its vigorous high-tech and textile industry and classical heritage gardens, people witnessed the 12-day-long sports gala which drew wide attention both at home and abroad, and Liu was one of them.

    As Beijing hopes to use the 2008 Olympic Games as a lens for the world to view China's historical heritages, the National Gameshas set a good rehearsal in organizing large-scale sports games.

    The Games, with the theme of "Sports Meet and People's Festival", featured 32 sports including all those in summer Olympics and attracted more than 40,000 athletes, coaches, referees, press and guests from various places of China, as well as the overseas.

    There are 22 cities, including six universities and colleges, all over the Jiangsu province hosted the sports events, as capitalNanjing shouldered nearly half of the 32 sports.

    "More than half of the sports were held outside Nanjing, which could inspired much attention from people all over the province, but cost much workload to the organizations." said Liang Baohua, executive director of the Organizing Committee.

    In order for a well coordination in so many cities, the Organizing Committee formed several sub-committees in various districts. "The establishment of the sub-committees proved to be asuccess." said Liang, "They contributed greatly in the coordination of the overall organizing works." said Liang, "Every branches had a close communication with the headquarters and the info-system of the National Games covers all the venues and hotelsin Jiangsu. The athletes, coaches, officials and press could get what they want at the sub-committees instead of contacting to the headquarters in Nanjing."

    The organizing works of sports games in China has long been criticized for its software instead of hardware, but changes have been made this time.

    "Some of the stadia and gymnasia in Nanjing are even better than those in Athens," said Liu, "but what amazed me was the 'software' which was much better than I expected before I came here."

    "In the past, the Organizing Committees of the large games often paid little attention to services, info-system or transportation. But in Nanjing, I am happy to see that those things have become the major criteria to measure the success of organizing committees." added Liu.

    People in Nanjing had a day off on October 12, opening day of the National Games, while in other days, the daily life of the Nanjing citizens have not been affected a lot, according to Liang.

    "Take the opening ceremony for an example, there were 246 more shuttles buses and 10 more subway trains at that night," said Liang. "The 80,000 spectators left the Olympic Stadium after the opening ceremony in just 45 minutes without any accidents."

    National Game's character epitomizes the philosophy of the Beijing Olympics. With more than 1,000 new cars hitting the Beijing streets every day and a forecast of 3.5 million cars in the city by 2008, traffic is considered one of the biggest challenges Beijing will face during the 17-day Olympics, and the National Game set a good example for Beijing.

    "During the 12-day National Games, there was no accident reported and everything went smoothly. I owed the success to the volunteers in the National Games." said Liang.

    There were more than 7,000 volunteers in Nanjing, plus more than 8,000 in other districts for the National Games.

    "The volunteers involved in every aspects of the Games, from transportation to press services. They contributed a lot to the organizing works. I want to express my appreciation to them all." said Liang.

    Liu Peng, president of the State General Administration of Sport, gave thumbs-up to Nanjing on Sunday, saying the host has achieved great success in many areas like transportation, security, broadcasting rating and competition organization.

    "The success of the 10th National Games shows that China has the ability to hold a successful Olympic Games." said Liu, "The success of the National Games is the beginning of the great Beijing Olympics." Enditem