Over 900,000 people apply for Guangzhou 2010 volunteers

Over 900,000 people apply for Guangzhou 2010 volunteers
     Guangzhou, July 30 - Over 900,000 people had applied for volunteers(志愿者) for the Guangzhou 2010 Asian Games and Asian Para Games(亚残会) by midnight [ˈmidnait](深夜) July 29, said Wang Huanqing, Director of the Volunteers Department of the Guangzhou Asian Games Organising Committee (GAGOC).(广州亚运组织委员会)
      GAGOC holds a press conference on Friday (July 30).(广州亚组委于周五召开新闻发布会)
Mr Wang told the media at a press conference on Friday (July 30) that the recruitment of Games-time Volunteers(亚运比赛志愿者的招聘) would end at 12:00am August 1 while the recruitment of City Volunteers(城市志愿者的招聘) will go on till September 30.
The Guangzhou 2010 Asian Games and Asian Para Games need a total of approximately(大概) 590,000 volunteers, including 85,000 Games-time Volunteers (60,000 for the Asian Games and 25,000 for the Asian Para Games) and about 500,000 City Volunteers.
Among all the applicants(申请者), 86.2 per cent are residents of Guangzhou and nearly 70 per cent are students and staff of higher education institutions.
Selected applicants will be officially registered as volunteers for the Games before the end of October.
Guangzhou will celebrate [ˈselibreit](庆祝) the 100-day countdown [ˈkaʊntˌdaʊn](倒计时) to the 16th Asian Games on August 4, Wednesday.

The introduction of Asian games.

The Asian Games were first held under the auspices of the International Amateur Athletic Federation(国际业余田径联合会) and are now regulated by the Olympic Council of Asia(亚奥历理事会).The first Asian games were held in 1951. Athletes came from Afghanistan [æfˈgænɪˌstæn](阿富汗), Burma (Myanmar [ˈmjænmɑ:])(缅甸), Ceylon [siˈlɔn] (Sri Lanka)(斯里兰卡), India, Indonesia [ˌindəuˈni:zjə](印度尼西亚), Iran, Japan, Nepal [nəˈpɔ:l, -ˈpɑ:l, -ˈpæl, neɪ-](尼伯尔), the Philippines, Siam (Thailand), and Singapore. Six events were featured:

track and field(田径), basketball, cycling, football, swimming, and weight lifting(举重). The fact that the games included no traditional Asian sports indicates how “western” international sport culture had become by the postwar [ˈpəʊstˈwɔ:](战后) period.