China announced the 2008 Olympic torch relay route and unveiled the Olympic torch on April 26, 2007. Preparations for the Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Games have been going on smoothly. In 2007, the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Games (BOCOG) unveiled the medal design, torch design, and the routes for the torch relay for next year's Olympics and Paralympics. All the venues except for the National Stadium have been completed by the end of the year, and the ticket sales for the 2008 Olympic Games were also launched domestically.[Xinhua] Performers take part in the opening ceremony for the 2007 FIFA Women's World Cup before the match between Germany and Argentina at the Hongkou Football Stadium in Shanghai, September 10, 2007. The Asian Winter Games were held in the cities of Changchun and Jilin, Northeast China's Jilin province in February and the women's World Cup was staged in five Chinese cities in September. [Xinhua] China's men's volleyball spiker Tang Miao is treated in hospital on December 18, 2007. Two athletes - the 15-year-old female gymnast Wang Yan and men's volleyball spiker Tang Miao - were badly hurt less than a week apart in June, causing nationwide debates over sports safety in competition and practice. [Xinhua]   Chinese basketball player Yi Jianlian, right, shakes hands with NBA Commissioner David Stern after Yi was selected by the Milwaukee Bucks in the National Basketball Association draft at Madison Square Garden on Thursday night, in New York June 28, 2007. Yi Jianlian became the fourth Chinese player in history to join NBA after he was picked up by the Milwaukee Bucks on June 28. He made his NBA debut on October 9. [Xinhua] A Kazakstan gymnast competes using the hoop during the individual all-round qualifications at the 2007 Rhythmic Gymnastics International Invitational Tournament held in the Beijing University of Technology Gymnasium, December 5, 2007. A total of 26 test events haven taken place this year at the various venues where next year's Beijing Olympic Games will be held. [Xinhua]. Athletes of China's Dongya team have a YOYO fitness test in Kunming, capital of Southwest China's Yunnan Province, December 16, 2007.  The Chinese government has enacted and put into practice the Temporary Provisions on the Employment of Athletes since September, serving as an emphatic measure to guarantee the Chinese athletes' rights and groom more excellent prospects. [Xinhua]

China's current women's soccer coach Elizabeth Loisel of France speaks during a press conference, October 28, 2007. The year 2007 saw the change of both Chinese men's soccer teams coach and women's. Home coach Zhu Guanghu was sacked after Chinese men's team was eliminated from the Asian Cup group stage while Swede Marika Domanski quit her post for "health, family and social reasons" after leading the women's national squad to the World Cup quarterfinals on home turf. [Xinhua]

An American athlete poses with a group of students on the sidelines of World Summer Special Olympics in Shanghai, October 10, 2007. A record 7,291 athletes from 164 countries and regions took part in the 21-sport Special Olympics World Summer Games slated for October 2-11 in Shanghai, with the eldest aged 69 and the youngest at 8. [Xinhua] A boy holds the torch during the openning ceremony of China's City Games in Wuhan, Central China's Hubei Province, October 25. The Games attracted 6,300 competitors from 74 delegations across the nation, contending in 288 events of 24 sports, most of which are among the Olympic program. [Xinhua] Yang Shu'an (R), executive vice-president of Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, shakes hands with Zhao Jian, head of Anti-Doping Commission of the Chinese Olympic Committee, during a ceremony to launch China's Anti-Doping Agency on November 25 2007. The agency, standing beside the old building of China Anti-Doping Center, will face its first major task in August next year when about 4,500 doping tests will be carried out here during the Beijing Olympics.[Xinhua]