The rehearsal involved a 2,500 strong team from Beijing 2008, Atos Origin and the technology partners.

It simulated the three busiest days of the Games (August 13, 16 and 21), during which about 500 pre-defined operational scenarios were executed, including a flood, network disconnection, power failure and changes to the competition schedule.

The final technical rehearsal was designed to ensure that staff, technology and procedures are fully ready to respond to any situation.

It also provided the opportunity for journalists and broadcasters to familiarise themselves with the information systems and to ensure that they will have all the information they need to broadcast the Olympic Games to more than four billion television spectators world-wide.

Pre-defined scenarios were set in the venues by a shadow team of nearly 100 technology officials, who then assessed the response of the operating team.

They included:

· Hardware failures, software bugs, sport changes, users’ complaints, staffing problems

· Security attacks, network breaks, and power outages. All the scenarios played had been kept totally secret from the operations team. On the second day of the rehearsal, the team faced an additional challenge, when one of the drills separately organised by the Chinese Ministry of Public Security coincided with the technical rehearsal at the beach volleyball venue. This exercise was to test the Beijing city’s emergency response capacity during Games period.

Testing took place for 35 Olympic sports plus a Wushu competition across 39 venues, both in Beijing and remote cities including Hong Kong.

All the competitions were simulated from real venues and under conditions very close to those during Games times.

"The preparation and performance by the Beijing 2008 Organising Committee and Atos Origin for the final technical rehearsal was outstanding," said Jean-Benoît Gauthier, the technology director of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

"As the worldwide IT partner and the information system integrator for the Olympic Games, Atos Origin utilised its rich experience to play a key role in organising the final technical rehearsal, which is a major milestone in preparing for and ensuring the readiness of the team and the systems for the Games."

Yang Yichun, the director of BOCOG Technology said: “With 50 days left to go before the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, we are pleased to see the final technical rehearsal completed successfully. Drawing on their extensive technical expertise of the Olympic Games, Atos Origin worked very closely with all other technology partners and significantly contributed to its success.

"We are confident that by building on the great successes of this rehearsal and with all parties working closely and effectively as one team, we are now ready for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games."

Patrick Adiba, the executive vice president Olympic Games and Major Events at Atos Origin, said: “We are delighted with how the entire team performed during the technical rehearsal.

Valuable lessons learned during the first technical rehearsal and previous Olympic Games helped the team to perform successfully.

"It is a highly valuable exercise that helps to strengthen the team’s confidence and to increase their knowledge of Games time operational requirements, ensuring that we are ready when the Games begin on August 8 2008."

The Atos Origin contract with the IOC is the largest sports-related technology contract covering Salt Lake City in 2002 (operating as SchlumbergerSema), Athens in 2004, Turin in 2006; Beijing in 2008, Vancouver in 2010 and London in 2012.