BEIJING, August 10-- Volunteers have been a regular fixture at the Olympics for quite some time. This year's 1,700,000 Olympic volunteers include 100,000 venue volunteers, 400,000 city volunteers, 1,000,000 society volunteers, and 200,000 cheerleading volunteers.

Additionally, 550 volunteer stations have been set up around the city with laptops, wireless cards, loudspeakers and microphones to better help the city volunteers serve the public.

In the 2000 Sydney Summer Olympics, 47,000 citizens volunteered; in the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics, the number of volunteers increased to 60,000. Beijing's unprecedented 1,700,000 volunteers serve both the visiting guests and the viewing public. BOCOG spent two years selecting these volunteers from an original applicant pool of 2,070,000

Twenty-two-year-old Yuan Yangyi is a student at Beijing Jiaotong University. After commuting to school for more than 16 years, Yuan has learned all of the 630 bus lines that run through Beijing. Yuan's fellow volunteers at the Xidan volunteer stand have given him the nickname "Walking Map." Yuan tells visitors where to transfer busses and can often list off several different routes visitors can take to their final destination. Yuan works hard every day, sometimes to the point of exhaustion. Sometimes his throat becomes hoarse. But Yuan has no time to drink because he must continue to give directions to the 200 or more people that pass by his stand every day.

Yuan is a model volunteer for his volunteer peers throughout the city. He often gives other volunteers advice on how to deal with guests.