Olympic Hostesses Strip Naked

Olympic hostesses had to strip naked so their body proportions could be measured to ensure only the most perfect women represented China at the Games.

But so great was the honour to hand out medals at the Beijing Games that they all agreed to shed their Chinese silk dresses and bare all.This was just one of the meticulous demands for the women who would end up in the glare of the world's media.

The Beijing Organising Committee for the Games of the 29th Olympiad (BOCOG) also required the candidates' eyes to be exactly 30% down the length of their face.

Their faces needed to meet stringent standards, including the ratio between the "width of the nose and the length of the face" and "width of the mouth and width between the pupils".

The girls all had to be university-educated, aged 18 to 24, and between 5ft 5in and 5ft 8in, with a "ruddy and shiny complexion", "elastic skin" and "a plump but not fat body".

The judges examined 5,000 girls from Beijing and Shanghai colleges until a final 297 were selected to be "Olympic victory ceremony volunteers".

They were then sent on a rigorous "charm boot camp" in Beijing's northern Changping district.

Their training was intense, with lessons from 6.30am to 11pm, in body-shaping, dancing, manners, ceremony processes and basic Olympic knowledge.

They were made to stand for hours in high-heels, and learned to hone the perfect smiles by spending hours in front of a mirror with a chopstick between their teeth."

In the standing sessions, we had to stand still and smile for half an hour or more," said 20-year-old hostess Ma Sha.

"We also ran about 1,000 metres every day for physical conditioning."But all the girls believe the training and selection process was worth it and are proud to be representing their country at the podium.

"I've always dreamed of being a guide hostess for the table tennis athletes at the Olympic venue," said Yang Xu, 19.

"We have worked so much, simply to give for a few minutes a good impression at the Olympic victory ceremony as we want to show the most beautiful aspect of oriental ladies across the world," said another of the candidates, Li Ziye, with a perfect - if robotic - beaming smile.