In a way, the Olympics have helped Beijing resident Guo Suying, 72, get rid of the irritating gasoline smell from a nearby filling station.

"This summer, we can open the window any time without fearing that the house would be filled with the smell," said Guo, who lives in Haidian District.

The change reflects a large-scale project involving the reclamation of emissions at gas stations across the capital, part of the Olympic host's efforts to improve air quality.

The city's 1,265 gas stations, 38 oil storehouses and 1,026 oil tank trucks completed an emission reclamation project during the past 13 months, said Li Kunsheng, a Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau official.

That's only a tiny part of the capital's progress in keeping the commitments it made seven years ago, when it won the bid for the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Beijing Shougang Group, one of China's leading steel makers and the city's major polluter, has extinguished the fire in three of its four blast furnaces at its Beijing plants.

The plants have slashed monthly production to 200,000 tonnes in the third quarter, said group president Zhu Jimin. "This is about 29 percent of our normal output."

Air quality is a major concern for participants in the Aug. 8-24 Games. The municipal authorities have also made it a priority to reduce pollution over the past decade, investing about 120 billion yuan (17 billion U.S. dollars) in the effort.

Measures such as the closure and removal of small polluting factories, the transformation of residential heating from coal to electricity, and stricter vehicle exhaust standards, have already done much to improve the capital's air quality.

For example, the number of "blue sky" days in the city -- an indicator of air quality -- increased to 246 last year from 100 in 1998.

To realize the "green" Olympics, the capital's afforested land increased by 10,000 hectares and meadowland by 4,653 ha from 2001 to 2007, according to Wang Sumei, a municipal official in charge of landscape engineering.

Du Shaozhong, the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau's deputy director, said to ensure good air quality during the Games, neighboring regions such as Tianjin and Hebei will control dust, vehicle exhaust and industrial pollution prior to and during the sports event.

CLEARING THE ROADS

Beijing has promised that traffic conditions will meet the demands of the Games, with the construction of roads and subways and upgrading of transport facilities.

The terminal building for Olympic charter flights was opened on July 8 at the Beijing Capital International Airport.

The terminal, with 12 gates, is part of Terminal 3, a major expansion for the airport as it prepared for a passenger surge during the Olympics.

With Terminal 3's opening on Feb. 29, the airport can handle up to 76 million passengers annually, more than double the previous capacity. The airport is expected to receive about 5.56 million people during the Games in August.

Meanwhile, subway lines 5, 10, the Olympic line and a 28-km light rail linking the downtown with the airport are all to be in operation before the Games. It will only take 16 minutes to travel from downtown to the airport by light rail, compared with the current one-hour trip by road.

Thirty-four special bus routes linking Games venues will operate during the event, and they'll be free to those who have Olympic tickets.

To avoid traffic jams, from July 20 to Sept. 20, cars will operate under an alternate-day driving system for odd- and even-numbered license plates. That's expected to take about half of the capital's more than 3 million vehicles off the roads. A test last August found the measure extremely effective in ensuring smooth traffic.

Many private car owners have also begun to reduce driving as their own contribution to improve the environment.

"I leave the car at home at least one day a week," said one Beijinger, surnamed Zhang. "Going to work by subway can prevent jams and save resources."

SECURITY A PRIME FOCUS

Beijing has 150,000 security guards plus 290,000 volunteers doing patrols. During the event, there will be at least 80,000 guards who are directly assigned to the Games.

This week, the city will start to deploy security staff at hundreds of checkpoints on road entries to the city to prevent dangerous people or cargo from entering the Olympic host city, according to the municipal public security bureau.

The subway is also carrying out security checks.

The Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau has said it will offer rewards of up to 500,000 yuan for information on major security threats during the Olympic Games.

MEDIA SERVICES

Beijing has made a commitment to ensure press freedom during the Games.

On Tuesday, three major media services facilities for the Games-- the Main Press Center and the International Broadcasting Center for 21,600 registered reporters, and the 2008 Beijing International Media Center to serve some 5,000 unaccredited reporters, opened.

Foreign journalists should complain formally if they have any official problems in doing their jobs during the Games, senior leade Li Changchun said on Thursday when visiting the International Media Center.

The government and the Beijing Olympic organizing committee have issued rules and a reporting guidebook for foreign journalists.

Li said officials would effectively implement the regulations that ensured foreign journalists would be allowed the freedom to report.