Ten Olympic songs were premiered on Saturday at a grand ceremony at Beijing Olympic Sports Centre, marking the end of the third Beijing 2008 Olympic Cultural Festival.

A host of famous pop singers and sports celebrities from the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan performed the songs, which were winners of the Second Olympic Songs Solicitation Campaign.

Winners from the first solicitation campaign, theme songs from the previous Olympic Games and other Olympics-related songs were also included in the repertoire. Dances, acrobatics and state-of-the-art lighting added color to the evening party, which attracted an audience of 4,000.

The Second Olympic Songs Solicitation Campaign was launched on December 1, 2004. A total of 430 full entries including both lyrics and music and 1,937 pieces of lyrics were submitted to the organizers, surpassing the first campaign in both quantity and quality. The 10 winners were finalized after four rounds of appraisals in May 2005 by a panel composed of professional musicians.

In the first solicitation campaign last year, seven songs were rewarded.

According to the organizers, the collecting campaign for Olympic songs will be held annually until 2007, from which the final theme songs for 2008 Games may be chosen.

With the announcement and performance of the 10 winning songs, the third Beijing 2008 Olympic Cultural Festival, which was launched on June 23 with the theme of "Civilization of Beijing, Passion for the Olympic Games" came to an end.

The annual festival this year featured a series of cultural events held across the capital city of China.

(China Daily July 18, 2005)