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(亞殘會) by midnight [?midnait](深夜) July 29, said Wang Huanqing, Director of the Volunteers Department of the Guangzhou Asian Games Organising Committee (GAGOC).(廣州亞運組織委員會)
      GAGOC holds a press conference on Friday (July 30).(廣州亞組委于周五召開新聞發(fā)布會)
Mr Wang told the media at a press conference on Friday (July 30) that the recruitment of Games-time Volunteers(亞運比賽志愿者的招聘) 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(申請者), 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 [?selibreit](慶祝) the 100-day countdown [?ka?nt?da?n](倒計時) 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(國際業(yè)余田徑聯(lián)合會) and are now regulated by the Olympic Council of Asia(亞奧歷理事會).The first Asian games were held in 1951. Athletes came from Afghanistan [?f?g?n??st?n](阿富汗), Burma (Myanmar [?mj?nmɑ:])(緬甸), Ceylon [si?l?n] (Sri Lanka)(斯里蘭卡), India, Indonesia [?ind?u?ni:zj?](印度尼西亞), Iran, Japan, Nepal [n??p?:l, -?pɑ:l, -?p?l, ne?-](尼伯爾), the Philippines, Siam (Thailand), and Singapore. Six events were featured:

track and field(田徑), basketball, cycling, football, swimming, and weight lifting(舉重). The fact that the games included no traditional Asian sports indicates how “western” international sport culture had become by the postwar [?p??st?w?:](戰(zhàn)后) period.