China's main Olympic venue, nicknamed the Bird's Nest, has opened to the public in Beijing.

The iconic 3.5 billion yuan (£250 million) arena, which was started in December 2003 and completed 14 weeks behind schedule, will host the opening and closing ceremonies as well as the athletics and soccer finals at the Games.

With 114 days to go until the opening ceremony, the finishing touches are still being applied. Workers are painting lines on the running track and some of the 91,000 seats have yet to be fixed in place.

From the inside, the interwoven steel structure that gives the stadium its nickname is largely hidden by a membrane that will keep the rain off many of the seats and prevent unsightly shadows from ruining television pictures on sunny days.

The stadium was supposed to have been finished along with the other venues by the end of 2007 but the completion date was first postponed to the end of March and then to the middle of April.

Officials confirmed in January that two workers had died during construction of the stadium, denying media reports that there had been at least ten fatalities.

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