The move is the latest respite for millions of residents in the capital, emerging from the shadow of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome).

More and more facilities are springing to life following the reopening of indoor sport and fitness facilities earlier this month.

Sources with the Beijing Sports Bureau said yesterday swimming pools in the city which meet the required hygiene standards will be allowed to reopen.

"People keep on calling to inquire about the date of the reopening of the swimming pools," said Fan Zheng, a division chief with the city sports bureau. Explaining the longer closure, Fan said: "In swimming pools people may have closer contact with others and that's why we postponed the reopening date to today."

Stadiums and swimming pools have to strictly implement SARS prevention measures and only those licensed by the health authorities can resume operations, said Fan.

Every pool must be equipped with a temperature-checking instrument at the entrance, plus disinfection measures.

There are a total of 503 swimming pools in the city, but only some of them have been given the go-ahead by the relevant authority to open to the public today. The rest of the pools are implementing the necessary measures and will reopen in due course.

A total of 701 indoor sports venues, half of the capital's total, were by Monday operating normally.

"More and more people are back in the gym," said a coach called Chen at the E-52 Fitness Center in Beijing. "They were far more relaxed and high-spirited, a sharp contrast to the fear and uncertainty in the initial days of the outbreak."

There were, however, still fewer people visiting the gym than in the days before the SARS crisis struck, forcing closure of all such facilities, she said.

"Things will be better if the city continues to report no SARS cases for a few more days," Chen added confidently.

Beijing had reported no SARS cases for eight consecutive days as of yesterday.

While gyms and swimming pools may have been hit hard, the badminton business has been booming.

At the entrance to a badminton center in Chaoyang District, people lined up to have their temperature checked and register their name and telephone numbers.

The added precaution is to ensure that if anyone who visited the center later fell ill, all their contacts can be speedily traced.

"I haven't come here to play for a long time," said Cheng Yandan, 25, a public servant in the city. "SARS made me aware that it is important to build a healthy body as well as healthy willpower."

(China Daily June 20, 2003)