An American tourist related to a US Olympic volleyballcoach was stabbed to death today in Beijing by a man who then killed himself.
The tourist, his wife and Chinese guide were attacked at the Drum Tower in central Beijing by a man wielding a knife, saida police spokesman.
The attacker jumped to his death from the second floor of the tower.
The attack on the first day of Beijing's Olympic Games casts a shadow on the world's largest sports event as China's government seeks to project the image of a progressive and peaceful nation to an estimated 4 billion television viewers around the world.
As many as 500,000 tourists are expected to visit the Chinese capital during the Olympics, which run until August 24th.
The assailant was identified as a 47-year-old from Hangzhou city in eastern China.
The wife of the murdered man and their Chinese guide have been taken to a hospital in Beijing, said Susan Stevenson, a US Embassy spokeswoman, declining to give further details.
The US Olympic Committee said she had been seriously injured. "Our priority in this hour is to attend to the needs of the family members, the US Olympic men's indoor volleyball team and staff, and the entire US Olympic Delegation,'' the committee said in the statement.
President George W Bush was informed and expressed his sympathy for the victims' families, a White House spokesman said.
The Drum Tower, a major tourist site in central Beijing, has been sealed off and uniformed police are standing guard. "Nothing like this has ever happened around here," said an eyewitness to the murder-suicide. "We get a lot of foreign tourists around here and it's always very peaceful. That assailant must have been crazy."