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For paraplegic Wu Runling, visiting a doctor in Beijing is like climbing Qomolangma (Mt. Everest).

Wu, paralyzed since the age of two, went to have a leg illness checked out last month but found a huge set of stairs blocking his way from the parking lot to the hospital's registration room.

"For healthy people, those stairs are just a few steps," said Wu, who runs an NGO providing services for people with disabilities. "But for crutch users, they are like Qomolangma."

Next year, thanks to a raft of changes being implemented ahead of the 2008 Beijing Games, life will become easier for Wu and China's 83-million disabled population. One of the keynote changes involves a partial makeover to the country's most famous landmark, the Great Wall.

"A vertical lift will be installed at the Badaling section of the Wall. It is being designed now so that disabled people can have better access," Wang Bingyang, a senior member of the organizing committee for the Beijing Paralympics, told China Daily. Badaling lies 70km northwest of Beijing and welcomes over 5 million tourists each year.

"Now there are several designs, but the government wants to see more. They hope the lift will be ready for the 2008 Beijing Games but they don't want to damage the Great Wall, so they are looking for the perfect design," said Wang.

With $40 billion promised by Beijing, the 2008 Games which includes the Olymics and Paralympics, are set to be the most expensive ever and leave the biggest legacies behind.

Billed as a "Games of Equal Splendor," the Paralympics will run from September 6-17 in Beijing, Qingdao and Hong Kong, one month after the Olympic Games. The planned arrival of 4,000-plus disabled athletes has breathed new life into urban renovation projects.

For some officials, Beijing faces a race against time if it hopes to meet their transport requirements.

"I worry more about the public transport," said Shen Zhifei,, vice-president of the China Disabled Persons' Federation (CDPF). "You cannot have all the athletes and special athletes staying in the Olympic Village all the time. The biggest challenge is the subway system, because few of the existing lines have any lifts."

More special alleyways for the blind, retractable slopes on bus doors and a growing awareness of the needs of the disabled are just some of the changes taking place in the Chinese capital.

Wheelchair ramps have been added at the Summer Palace and an elevating ramp at the Noon Gate of the Forbidden City.

Beijing is currently building six new subway lines to complement the existing three as a way of overhauling a public transport network that has not kept pace with the city's explosive growth. The difference is that each of the new lines will include barrier-free facilities.

"In the last two decades, Beijing has built a lot of accessible facilities, but after we were awarded the 2008 Olympic Games, it accelerated construction, especially in the last five years," said Wang, deputy director of the Paralympic Games Department of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG). "Now, when they are planning urban construction, they take into account the needs of the disabled."

International Paralympic Committee President Philip Craven likened the Great Wall makeover to the accessibility of the Acropolis at the Athens Games in 2004.

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