China Agricultural University has seen costs for its on-campus gymnasium, which hosts the wrestling events, grow an extra 20 million yuan from its initial figure of 60 million yuan.

'Those increases came as a result of persistent requests to upgrade facilities from Bocog,' said one person familiar with the matter. 'They simply kept raising the bar.'

But one look at the showpiece stadiums gives you an idea of the high standards the lesser-known venues were trying to match.

The National Stadium, better known as the Bird's Nest, was designed by Swiss firm Herzog and de Meuron, known for turning a hulking power plant in London into the Tate Modern art gallery. It's a 91,000-seat (80,000 permanent, 11,000 temporary) bowl that will host the opening and closing ceremonies, plus track and field events and the soccer finals.

The stadium's nickname comes from its exterior of steel 'twigs', which appear to form a massive, curving nest. The cost stands at 3.5 billion yuan, but would be more had the government not adopted cost-cutting measures in 2004 in response to criticism of its alleged 'unnecessary largesse'.

As a result, designers reluctantly cancelled plans for a retractable roof and wiped out 10,000 seats from their initial blueprint. Across from the Bird's Nest is perhaps Beijing's most whimsical building: the National Aquatics Centre, known as the Water Cube, which will host swimming and diving contests.

Engineers used material similar to plastic wrap to create 4,000 translucent bubbles, which were filled with air and bolted to a metal frame. The material allows sunlight to filter in and the sounds of splashing water to flow out, making it a unique sensory experience for spectators and passers-by. But it cost a pretty penny, coming in at 1.028 billion yuan, though much of that money came in donations from Hong Kong tycoons.

Renovation of existing infrastructure did not escape escalating expenditures, either. The organisers, for example, spent 48.9 million yuan for a facelift of the Capital Indoor Stadium to meet the standards for Olympic volleyball.

'This is the biggest building boom in Olympic history,' said Huang Wei, an adviser to the Beijing municipal government on Olympics-related business.

He fears the huge projects may become white elephants after the Games. 'Personally, I'm worried about how those stadiums are going to sustain themselves economically after the Games,' he said.

But Chinese authorities, with their pockets swollen from soaring tax revenues after a three decade-old economic boom and with few checks to rein them in, care more about how to project a well-polished, grand image of their city and nation.

On top of the venue construction, they have shelled out 270 billion yuan to build new roads, extend the capital's subway system, reinvent Beijing's international airport, clean up the perennial muddy waterways and refit energy-intensive industries to improve air quality - all in the name of the Games.

Beijing has become a different city after this epic overhaul, squeezing itself into the ranks of the world's urban giants.

But, typical of an authoritarian regime, one issue not on the agenda or reflected in the balance books is whether or not the taxpayers are happy about the way their money has been spent.