Letter from Beijing/Clifford Coonan: As the Olympic Games closed in Athens, Beijing was launching a countdown clock to mark the minutes between now and when the flame is lit in the Chinese capital for the 2008 Olympics.
Ask anyone on the streets of Beijing and they will dutifully tell you how the Beijing Olympics will be the biggest, the best and the most spectacular games ever.
That has been the message repeated ad nauseam since the Chinese capital successfully bid to stage the games back in 2001.
But with four years still to go, the government is trying to encourage citizens to adopt the mindset of the marathon runner rather than the sprinter.
With rampant growth threatening to overheat the economy, the government has had to take steps to cool the economy and keep a lid on excess expansion.
And fears that Olympic fever could peak too soon have led to a more austere approach.
The new low-key message means that as far as officialdom is concerned, the Beijing games will be "economic", "frugal" and "good".
This has not translated into any fewer cranes on the skyline but the frenetic pace of construction is not expected to accelerate much in coming months.
It's not an easy task, cooling people's ardour amid the outpouring of public emotion over China's remarkable performance in the Athens Games.
China notched up 32 gold medals for their best-ever Olympics performance, second only to the US with 35, while Russia came third - a startling achievement considering China only started participating in the Olympics in 1984.
Expect an even bigger medal haul in 2008, as the government continues "Strategy Gold," a multi-million-dollar plan to build training centres and develop sports disciplines where China usually doesn't do so well.
Indeed, "Strategy Gold" is already bearing fruit.
China won medals in unexpected places, including in track and field where they traditionally underwhelm.
Most spectacular was when Liu Xiang won the 110-metre hurdles to become the first Chinese man to capture gold on the track and the first Chinese runner of either gender to win a medal in the sprints.
An hour later, Huina Xing beat a trio of Ethiopians to take gold in the women's 10,000 metres.
"The motherland is proud of you, so are the people," the government said in an emotional message to the athletes.
The government is expected to spend around €25 billion on infrastructure projects for the 2008 Olympics. Of the 37 venues for the games, 32 of them will be built in Beijing and 19 will be brand new. There are also plans to renovate or expand nearly 60 training sites and special facilities will be built for the Paralympics.
Beijing is keen to emulate the success of Barcelona in its Olympic preparations. The Catalan capital thrived after the athletes went home and its Olympic architecture became part of the fabric of the city.
China has a lot of experience in Soviet-style central planning and Beijing will certainly be ready in time.
International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge recently suggested Beijing should take it easy.
"I am usually in the position of telling people to hurry up. I am now saying, 'Slow down', " he said.
One project feeling the brunt of the austerity plan is the structure nicknamed "The Bird's Nest" by local Beijingers - the Olympic Stadium itself, which is being built by Swiss-based architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron.
It does indeed look like a huge bird's nest and it promises to become the centrepiece and the icon of the games. The €415 million stadium will have a capacity of 100,000 seats during the Olympic Games and 80,000 seats afterwards.
The original structure was designed to include a roll-on roof to protect against Beijing's regular bouts of summer rain.
But with huge demand for steel - mostly from within China - driving prices high, the structure has been trimmed back. The sliding roof is gone, saving €34 million in the process.
Adding to the more reserved approach have been the scandals surrounding the construction plan. Senior transport officials building a network of motorways around the city to help move Olympic traffic around the congested city were arrested on charges of taking nearly €6 million in backhanders.
Another official investigation discovered that around €10 million, which had been set aside for building sports facilities, had gone into housing for sports officials.
And human rights groups are keen to highlight China's record on human rights in a four-year global campaign.
But for all the talk of austerity, some plans are on track to impress by any standard. Such as running the Olympic torch relay over Mount Everest.