Special report: 2008 Olympic Games

    HONG KONG, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Hong Kong was awarded the right to co-host the equestrian events of the 2008 Beijing Olympics on July 8, 2005, leaving the southern Chinese special administrative region with about three years to get prepared.

    With only two weeks to go before the opening of the Olympics on Aug. 8, the city was now simmering with Olympic zest over the past three years.

    "We are ready," singers said in a song celebrating the one-year countdown to the start of the Olympic Games. The line has often been quoted by local sports officials to tell the world that Hong Kong was ready, citing their state-of-the-art facilities.

    New venues were built and some of existing facilities for horseracing were converted to Olympic uses, with air-conditioned stables to accommodate the competing horses during the Olympics and Paralympics in August and September.

    In a resounding appreciation of Hong Kong's preparation work, International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogue recently joked that he would be as happy to reside in one of the "six-star stables" as to stay in a hotel room when visiting Hong Kong.

    Hong Kong is located at the southeastern tip of the Chinese mainland, with a total area of about 1,104 square kilometers covering the Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, the New Territories and the Islands. Its population totaled 6.93 million by mid-2007.

    Known as the Oriental Pearl, Hong Kong is one of the world's leading financial, shipping and aviation hubs. The skyscrapers on the local skyline have been as famous as the glamorous night view of the deep-water Victoria Harbor that runs through the city.

    The Causeway Bay on Hong Kong Island, with shopping malls and high-rise neighborhoods, is often referred to as one of the world's most densely populated places. Shopping malls are also seen in Tsim Sha Tsui and Mong Kok in Kowloon.

    The Central, also on Hong Kong Island, showcases Hong Kong's role as an international financial center with offices and banks nearly every stone's throw. Over 70 of the world's hundred top banks have offices or regional headquarters here. Many financial institutions have been posting more senior staff members recently.

    Hong Kong retained its capitalist economy and lifestyle as a special administrative region after its return to the motherland in July 1997. Freedom of the press and the common law system inherited from the colonial era were respected.

    Hong Kong is also regarded as the world's freest economy, with the local currency pegged to the United States dollar at 7.8 HK dollars to 1 U.S. dollar.

    The Hong Kong economy, supported by trade and benefiting from increasingly close ties with the mainland, has been growing at a trend of over 6 percent in the recent four years.

    The city takes pride in calling itself the equestrian capital, largely for its horse racing tradition that dated back to over a century earlier. Horse racing events were regularly held on Wednesdays and weekends during the racing seasons, with part of the television and newspaper spaces devoted to analysis of bettingon the races.

    Maximum temperatures in the city average 18.6 degrees Celsius in January and 31.5 degrees in July. But an average humidity of 77percent across the year means that it could be stifling when the air temperature rises to above 33 degrees. The Olympic equestrian events will be held in early morning and around dusk to avoid the heat and organizers of the events have devoted resources to building air-conditioned stables.

    The Olympic Equestrian Company was specially established in February to organize the equestrian events. It spent 1.2 billion HK dollars (0.15 billion U.S. dollars), which was way less than previous records, on building the venue for the Olympic equestrian events within three years. The facilities won praises from athletes during test events.

    Four athletes from Hong Kong will compete in the equestrian Olympic events, in addition to 31 others who will compete in other sports of the Beijing Olympics in hopes of joining Lee Lai-shan, who won an Olympic gold medal in windsurfing in 1996.