BEIJING, January 15, 2008 -- Volunteers who speak less commonly spoken languages well are in short supply for the Olympic sailing events, and the demands of the Olympic Games might not be met, according to the organizing committee of the Olympic sailing events.

In order to better promote BOCOG's communication with NOCs, BOCOG set up a service department to communicate with the NOCs before the games. The Qingdao Sailing Committee also has the NOC communication service department contacting the NOCs before the games and serving them during the event.

The NOC service is conducted mostly by NOC assistants. To assign one NOC assistant who speaks the language of the delegation from each country has long been the tradition of the Olympic Games. The NOC assistants are the main resource for the delegation to understanding the culture of the host country.

The Qingdao Sailing Committee is going to provide the NOCs assistance in 20 languages. So far, 12 languages' volunteers have been finalized. Volunteers who speak Hindi, Slovenian, Croatian, Dutch, Polish, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Malay, Bahasa Indonesian, Hebrew, Turkish, Thai and Greek are in short supply.

The sailing committee hopes people who speak those languages could register as volunteers, either through the official website of the sailing committee or by dialing 86-532-83092082.