(BEIJING, December 17) -- Liu Qi, president of the Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG), urged an enhancement of emergency response capabilities in the Olympic venues on Sunday.

On a visit to Peking University Gymnasium (PUG), he called for reinforced work to build competent venue teams and improve emergency response measures to lay a solid foundation for staging a high-level Olympics with distinguishing features in 2008.

Since December 13, PKU Gymnasium has held the 2007 Good Luck Beijing International Table Tennis Federation Pro-Tour Grand Finals. The event went on smoothly at the beginning, but at 3:24 p.m., December 14, power failure occurred in some parts of the competition venue, causing a short suspension of the competition. Power resumed in 12 minutes as a result of urgent repairs. An investigation has found that it was a failure of the emergency power supply equipment that caused the blackout.

Liu Qi inspected the venue and heard a report on the incident. He said the hosting of successful Olympics is a matter of primary importance to the nation and that everybody must have a high sense of responsibility. The build-up of venue teams should be given priority, and the emergency-response measures should improve from time to time.

He called on the organizers to prevent a reoccurrence of the errors at the Good Luck Beijing sport events. They must find out about any incipient troubles and potential risks and take the appropriate measures to deal with them beforehand. Overload tests must be carried out on the venue equipment in operation.