Beijing takes delivery of medals

Beijing organisers took possession of the 3,000 medals for next month's Olympics in a ceremony near Tiananmen Square yesterday, 36 days before the start of the Games.

The medals were the first for an Olympics to be designed by the winners of a public competition and each has a distinctive inlay of jade, which represents beauty, nobility, perfection, power and immortality to the Chinese.

Organising committee vice-president Jiang Xiaoyu also took symbolic possession of the 3,000 medals for September's Paralympics from Australian mining company BHP Billiton, who sponsored the medals for both Games.