Bird's Nest stadium opens its doors

China's new National Stadium, the centrepiece of the Beijing Olympics and better known as the Bird's Nest (picture), was opened to international media for the first time yesterday.

The iconic 3.5 billion yuan ($500.2 million) arena, which was started in December 2003 and completed 14 weeks behind schedule, will host the opening and closing ceremonies as well as the athletics and soccer finals at the Aug. 8-24 Games.

With 113 days to go until the opening ceremony, the finishing touches were still being applied. Workers were painting lines on the running track and some of the 91,000 seats had yet to be fixed in place.

Workers and the large band of volunteers were reluctant to talk to the media but several said they thought the structure was "amazing".