(BEIJING, September 3) -- Legend vaulter Sergey Bubka said Beijing's big investment in environmental protection has paid off as pollution has been brought under control.
"When you come to Beijing what you find is that the whole city has changed enormously in the last few years in this respect," he told Xinhua in a recent interview in Osaka.
Nicknamed "the czar of pole vaulting", the 44-year-old six world title winner and former Olympic champion of Ukraine is a member of the Executive Board of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and vice president of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF).
Bubka said the IOC and the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCO) had maintained excellent cooperation and that both of them had discussed every issue candidly in the interest of holding a successful Olympiad in 2008.
