Over 1.7 million volunteers will help out during the Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Games. These include Chinese residents, overseas Chinese and foreigners, and all are getting ready for the big events.

The girl smiling at the lens is one  of some 400 Olympic volunteers who  will present medals to athletes as  ceremony hosts. They are doing exercises in poise include "standing in five- to six-inch heels with jaws tucked in while balancing a 16-page book on their head and keeping a sheet of paper between their knees, for at least an hour. A total of 74,615 volunteers will work in Beijing and another 7,600 will be  based at the six co-host cities.(china.org)

This is the last training session before these foreign volunteers start to work at the Beijing Olympics.

Over 900 foreign volunteers will help during the Games. They are all required to speak basic Chinese, know their way around the Olympic venues, and have some first aid knowledge.

An official from the overseas volunteers recruit center says they'll start work over the next few days and will all make their own contributions, just like their Chinese counterparts.

Volunteers, said, "We are ready." "Come on." "Smile, smile, smile."

Meanwhile, nearly one hundred Olympic volunteers from Hong Kong arrived in Beijing on Saturday.

Most volunteers will work in the spectators' stands, where they'll assist sports fans and help maintain order.

The volunteers are both college students and ordinary citizens.

They say they're proud to have made it this far and consider their work for the Olympics a great honor.

HK Volunteer, said, "We've been selected from over seven-thousand applicants in Hong Kong. The selection process, including tests and interviews, was very strict. Besides our language skills, the way we smile was also part of the testing process."

More than 300 overseas Chinese will also volunteer at the first Olympics on Chinese soil.

Chen Bingxiong was one of the ones selected from over 27-thousand applicants. Like many of his colleagues, the entrepreneur left his business temporarily in order to work at the Beijing Olympics.

Chen Bingxiong, Volunteer, said, "As an overseas Chinese, I think it's worth doing this so I can make a contribution to my motherland."

The overseas Chinese volunteers will be located in the Olympic Village and some of the Olympic venues, providing language assistance for the athletes.

Officials say their contributions during the Games will be huge, since volunteer assistance is needed in at least 50 languages.