Special report:   2008 Olympic Games     

    BEIJING, May 29 (Xinhua) -- The Official Website of the Beijing2008 Paralympic Games, paralympic.beijing2008.cn, was launched Thursday on the occasion of the 100-day countdown to the start of the event.

    Offered in English and Chinese, the Beijing Paralympic website will provide detailed information on all the Paralympic sports and disciplines. During the Paralympics, the Beijing Paralympic website will post up-to-the-minute official news, competition results, medal standings and Paralympic news, as well as live coverage of important press conferences.

    People will find detailed information on lodging, transportation, shopping and information services, and can use thee-map to locate competition venues and points of interest and lookup public transit routes and driving directions.

    The website is designed according to W3C's guidelines on Web accessibility, so people with a disability who use Web browsing tools will be able to navigate the website with ease. Meanwhile, both the English and Chinese versions of the website include a Web browsing tool, Easy Web Browsing, which aids people with a visual impairment by reading website text out loud and allowing users to adjust the text size.

    The website is the first Paralympic website to ever offer barrier-free information service and e-map.

    "The website makes information of the Paralympic Games more available for the Chinese 83 million disabled people," said Tang Xiaoquan, executive vice president of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG) and president of the executive board and vice chairwoman of the China Disabled Persons' Federation (CDPF), after the launching ceremony at the Beijing Xinjiekou Warm House.

    Zhao Han, 32, of low eyesight, the first person to use the website, said: "It's the first time for me to use such a convenient and people-friendly website on which people like me can easily read. I'm very happy."

    Scheduled for Sept. 6-17, the Beijing Paralympic Games will see20 sports contested -- more than any Games in Paralympic history. An estimated 4,000 athletes, 2,500 coaches and officials and 4,000journalists from over 150 countries will attend the Games -- more participants than in any past Games.