IT'S THE FINAL COUNTDOWN!

29 April 2008

With just 100 days to go before the start of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, The Hong Kong Jockey Club is launching three Olympic-themed locations to mark the occasion and to celebrate Hong Kong's role as an Olympic co-host city.

"It is very exciting that it is just 100 days to go to the Games", Club Chief Executive Officer Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges said today. "We at the Club are very proud to have been asked to be the venues provider for the Olympic Equestrian Events and we are also very proud of the facilities that we have created. We are fully committed to making the Olympic Equestrian Events a huge success and we can tell the world now, We Are Ready."

Two of the Club's three Olympic-themed locations have another special significance as they will be part of the Olympic Torch Relay, which comes to Sha Tin Racecourse on 2 May. On this historic occasion, Hong Kong will be the first Chinese city to receive the Olympic Flame and the Torch will make its first visit to a 2008 Olympic venue when it comes to the Hong Kong Olympic Equestrian Venue (Sha Tin).

After the Olympic Torch has passed through the main Olympic venue, the new Equine Avenue and Flag Boulevard and the auspicious Flag Plaza guide the Torch Relay towards the hallowed turf of Sha Tin Racecourse itself, marking the first time in Olympic history that a racecourse has been incorporated into an Olympic equestrian venue.

• Equine Avenue and Flag Boulevard at Sha Tin Racecourse ¡V 150-metre avenue of slender triangular pillars that depict an equestrian horse in motion. Clever design means that a moving vehicle ¡V or a running Torchbearer - will view the horse in action as though it's jumping. Viewed in the opposite direction, the flags depict a racehorse in full-flight, symbolising the coming together of the two sports, equestrian and racing to validate Hong Kong as The Equine Capital. The Equine Avenue leads directly onto the 350-metre Flag Boulevard, featuring over 200 flagpoles flying the special Olympic Torch Relay flags.
• Flag Plazaat Sha Tin Racecourse ¡V set on the roundabout in front of the Sha Tin Clubhouse, the Flag Plaza features 50 flagpoles set out in the pattern of the figure eight, the most auspicious number in Chinese culture. The special configuration also reflects the lucky 8s in the Olympic opening ceremony, which starts at 8.08pm on 8/8/08. Official Torch Relay flags will be flown from today (30 April) until the end of May, when they will be replaced by the flags of nations participating in the Olympic equestrian events in Hong Kong. The flags of nations will remain in place from 1 June right through to the end of the Games.
• Equestrian Lawn at The Hong Kong Jockey Club headquarters, Happy Valley - a double row of Torch Relay flags acts as a backdrop to the Equestrian Lawn, which has been built around a reinterpretation of the Olympic Rings, with five arches in the five Olympic colours of blue, yellow, black, green and red representing the world's five major continents. Every national flag in the world includes at least one of the five colours in the Olympic Rings. The Equestrian Lawn also includes five horse statues, depicted in dressage pose and painted in the five Olympic colours. The horse quintet is a further endorsement of Hong Kong's Olympic co-host city status and the siting of the Equestrian Lawn right next to the Club's headquarters emphasizes the Club's role as venues provider and facilitator for the Olympic equestrian events and its support for Beijing.

The Club's three Olympic themed locations are also designed to show that the Olympics are far more than just a sporting event. The Games showcase the host city like no other event and Hong Kong, Asia's World City, will be wearing her best finery for the August sporting extravaganza. The Club's new locations are just a foretaste of the major city dress-up, adding an early vibrancy to a city that will soon be sporting her Olympic summer colours.