With no sign of any serious dent in the 95 percent approval rating of the Games revealed by a 2001 Gallup poll, Beijingers are expected came out in force to display their support for what is being described as China's coming-out party.
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"Holding the Olympic Games has been the common aspiration of all our country's peoples, something the Chinese have been waiting for for 100 years," the Communist Party's newspaper, the People's Daily, quoted top government officials as saying.
"In a year's time .... the century-long dream of the Chinese people will come true."
But the China Daily cautioned against too much early optimism and said there remained a lot of work to do, especially after recent rain storms flooded streets and brought traffic to a standstill, showing the inadequacy of Beijing's drainage.
"Without major operations on the current network, there is no guarantee such incidents will not be repeated next summer," it said in an editorial.
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