They clapped, they waved, they chanted in happy unison - and the Olympics does not even start for eight months.

The 200 dairy workers gathered with their stick-shaped drumming balloons were among the first Beijing citizens to undergo Olympic cheering practice, the latest initiative by the city government to ensure its citizens prove themselves deserving of the Games next year.

The government is said to have been concerned by the spectacle of the 2004 Asian Football Cup final in the Chinese capital, when an unruly mob angered by the nation's defeat to Japan surrounded the opposition bus, pelted it with stones and bottles, and then fought running battles with the police.