Beijing vows to fight fair

Beijing promised on Tuesday a fair and friendly contest to host the 2008 Olympics after China's capital was chosen as one of the five official candidates for the summer games.

"The Beijing Olympic Bid Committee is willing, under the relevant rules of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), to hold a fair and friendly competition with our rivals to make a new contribution to the Olympic movement," a bid committee official told Reuters.

The IOC's executive board chose Beijing, Toronto, Osaka, Paris and Istanbul to compete for the right to hold the 2008 Summer Games.

Bangkok, Havana, Kuala Lumpur, Seville and Cairo failed to make it to the next stage of the bidding process.

The winning bid is to be announced next July at an IOC congress in Moscow.

The Beijing bid committee would travel to the IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland in December to make a report on its progress and an IOC delegation would visit Beijing between February and April next year, the official said.

"After entering the second stage, the final contestants' Olympic bid campaigns will increase their publicity work and competition will become more intense," said the official.

"The task of the Beijing bid committee will become even greater."

Beijing applied to host the 2000 Olympics but lost out to Sydney by just two votes in 1993 -- a result that was seen in China as a national humiliation.

The Chinese capital has promised to spend billions of dollars on cleaning up its environment and improving its transport system in order to hold the 2008 games.

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