Forward to Beijing! A Guide to the Summer Olympics was written in advance of this exciting event, and gives a brief history of the Games from their ancient origins in Greece to their revival in 1896. It surveys some of the triumphs enjoyed and difficulties encountered by the Olympic Movement over time and gives some of the highlights of Olympiads held from 1896 to 1984, including details of those athletes who won more than one gold medal each in any single one of these early modern Olympiads.
The Games first took place in Asia in 1964, in Tokyo, Japan, returning in 1988, twenty-four years later, this time to Seoul, Korea. Taking 1988 as a starting point, therefore, Forward to Beijing! gives a detailed account of several important aspects of the Olympic Games. Each of the twenty-eight Olympic sports from "Aquatics" to "Wrestling" is described with definitions of some of the special terms used and explanations of the rules that govern these sports, together with their associated disciplines. Here also, for every single Olympic sport, are the names of gold medal winners at these Games, and information about the country they represented. Some Key Words for the discussion of each Olympic Sport are provided. Quizzes serve as a summary of the main points and as conversational openers.
Forward to Beijing! records many of the actions that the City of Beijing and the PRC undertook to ensure the success of the 2008 Games. Somewhat light-heartedly, but also usefully, it features a number of situational conversations (with vocabulary and phrase book sections), all of which were considered to be helpful for visitors to the Games with no knowledge of Chinese and who would need to communicate in English during the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. This was also considered useful to help those Chinese residents, who wished to communicate in English with foreign visitors — of whatever nationality — but who might have had little prior experience of doing so, to communicate more effectively. This was intended as our contribution to the Speak English Programme, introduced by the PRC to, "build up a favourable language environment" for the forthcoming Games. Now the Games are over, this feature continues to offer assistance to residents and visitors alike.