Hong Kong's elite athletes, in T-shirts with the Beijing Olympic logos, joined local youth groups and entertainers in a piazza show on Wednesday to celebrate the milestone one-year countdown to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

Hong Kong, one of the 2008 Olympic host cities outside Beijing, has recently completed the building of all competition and training arenas for the Olympic equestrian events next year in Hong Kong and is to stage a three-day trial equestrian event Saturday through Monday.

"We are here to report to you, we are ready," announced Timothy Fok Tsun-ting, president of the Olympic Committee of Hong Kong, echoing a Beijing Olympic countdown theme song.

Simultaneous celebrations, staged at the Tiananmen Square in Beijing and in front of the Olympic countdown clock in Kowloon Park, Hong Kong, were broadcast live on two huge screens installed at the seaside piazza in Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong.

"I am glad that the Olympics are to be staged in my own country, " said a spectator surnamed Cheuk, adding that she had come to the ceremony to show her support.

Hong Kong's Chief Executive Donald Tsang officiated at the ceremony. Other guests included Gao Siren, director of the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and Henry Tang, Hong Kong's Chief Secretary for Administration.