"What do we want? We want the best Games for the athletes," Francois Carrard, IOC director general, said at a press conference here on Wednesday.

"So the sports venues and sports organization are the key priorities," he added.

His remarks came when a 23-member IOC delegation started its three-day visit here to see how the city gets along with the preparations for the Games and share with them the expertise on how to stage the top sporting event.

The delegation, with all of its members assembled here on Wednesday, is composed of members of the IOC Coordination Commission for the 2008 Olympics and Olympic experts in a variety of such fields as finance, sport, marketing, security, environment and traffic.

The schedule of the IOC team here includes discussions with the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games (BOCOG) on a range of issues and site visits to Olympic Green and Wukesong Sports and Culture Complex, two major venues planned for the Games, as well as Beijing's traffic control center.

IOC Sports Director Gilbert Felli said that the IOC is to work with BOCOG as a team and they are here also to see what help the organizers need.

"We are here not to monitor or order the organizing committee," he said.

He added that IOC has had a Transfer of Knowledge program ready for the organizing committee and experts in different fields will be sent here if the Games organizers request.

The IOC will also hold seminars in different fields with the BOCOG to ensure there is "a good understanding on the level of the preparation" and the hosts won't lose time in their build-up to the Games.

"So far it seems that our friends in BOCOG are keen to follow the advice of either IOC or experts," he said.

The IOC Co-ordination Commission sent a six-member fact-finding group here late April for its first working session with BOCOG. The full-member coordination commission will make its first visit here in December.

The commission consists of representatives of national Olympic committees, the international federations and athletes as well as experts.

In the Beijing visit in April, the IOC gave heir thumbs-up to the preparatory work of BOCOG, in particular in fields such as venue construction, accommodation and marketing.

( August 8, 2002)