SAN JOSE, Calif. — Swimmer Cullen Jones now has his official uniform for the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, the blazer he’ll wear if he wins a medal, and about 50 other pieces of apparel to commemorate his first Olympic Games, but he can’t quite get his head around the fact that he’s actually going.

“I’m still just in awe of the moment right now. I don’t think it’s sunk in,” the Bronx-born Mr. Jones, 24, told The New York Sun during the weekend as he and his fellow swimmers became some of the first athletes to pass through the U.S. Olympic Committee’s processing center set up at San Jose State University. “It’ll sink in when I’m on that long plane ride over there.”

For many athletes, the day spent here being fitted for uniforms, checked out by doctors, and lectured about how to behave in Beijing was a welcome break from the relentless training schedule.

“The days are starting to merge together,” Mr. Jones, who has been training since July 7 with the other Olympic-bound swimmers at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., said. “What we do is go from the hotel to the pool, the pool to the hotel. You kind of lose track of time.”

This month, Mr. Jones, who now hails from Irvington, N.J., has seen more than his share of highs and lows. On Independence Day, at the Olympic trials semifinals in Omaha, Neb., he shattered the American record in the 50-meter freestyle. His new record lasted only until the final the next day, where he came in third and lost the right to compete in his strongest event. However, another third-place finish in the 100 meter snagged him a spot on the 4 x 100 meter relay team.

Mr. Jones said he felt like a kid in a candy store Saturday as he trundled an orange shopping cart — provided, naturally, by Home Depot, an Olympic sponsor — through a large apparel room featuring everything from the official Olympic outfits to baseball caps to T-shirts with Beijing printed in Chinese characters.

Men’s and women’s fitting rooms were available, but they saw little traffic from the swimmers, who seemed quite comfortable stripping down to their bathing suits out in the open to try on various items.

“We go all the way up to a 60 blazer and we start out at a 00 petite,” an Olympic official, Linda Armbruster, said. Tailoring for the opening ceremony outfits, which are kept under wraps until the big event, was done in a separate room with papered-over windows; photographers were instructed not to shoot images of the podium outfits or the ceremony wear. Athletes were also fitted for team rings — the base model is free, but diamonds are extra.

Processing the athletes is usually done on-site at the games when they are held in Europe, but in America when the games are held in Asia. “It’s just the hemispherics more than anything,” Nancy Gonsalves of the U.S. Olympic Committee said, noting that World Cup events for many sports are held in Europe, but rarely in Asia.

Ms. Gonsalves said almost all of the about 600 American athletes will pass through San Jose before August 8. Exceptions have been made for equestrians, who will stay with their horses as they are shipped to Hong Kong from Europe, and for road cyclists on the Tour de France, she said.

“We don’t want to impact performance,” she said.

The long flight Mr. Jones is anticipating will take him and the other swimmers not to Beijing, but to Singapore. The American swimming team will spend about nine days training there before flying to Beijing on August 4.

While some athletes have announced plans to arrive late in Beijing to minimize their exposure to the city’s polluted air, Ms. Gonsalves said that’s not the main reason for the out-of-town training. “It’s not pollution. It’s more just dedicated training facilities and distractions — minimizing distractions,” she said.

Ms. Gonsalves said fewer late arrivals are planned in Beijing than she had initially expected. “What I’m seeing is they are going in for opening and then leaving,” she said.

America’s contenders in the triathlon will march with the Olympic team in Beijing on August 8 and then head to Korea for about 10 days before returning to China to compete.

“They want to partake in the opening ceremonies. I think everyone expects a spectacular show. These could be very, very memorable,” the official said.

Athletes were briefed on the International Olympic Committee’s strict rules for Web logging: no ads but those from the lead Olympic sponsors, no photos of competition, and no audio or video at all. The competitors also got some warnings about food.

“Don’t eat the street food until you’re done with competition,” Ms. Gonsalves said, describing one of the briefings.

While American Olympic officials offended the Chinese earlier this year by disclosing plans to import American food to avoid chemical-laden Chinese meats, Ms. Gonsalves said athletes were being told it was “absolutely fine” to eat the Chinese-provided food in the athletes’ village. “You shouldn’t be afraid to have a piece of chicken in the village,” she said.

Mr. Jones said he’s taking the do’s and don’ts in stride. The team roster lists him as a New Jersey resident, but he still considers himself a New Yorker. “I was born at Einstein,” he told the Sun. “When I was growing up a lot of my weekends were spent in the Bronx. … Some of my best memories are in New York with family.”

Mr. Jones, who is the only African-American swimmer on this year’s American Olympic team and the third black athlete ever to make the squad, is active in a program called Make a Splash, which encourages African-American and Hispanic youngsters in inner-city neighborhoods to learn to swim.

Mr. Jones said he’s not expecting culture shock from the sights and smells in Beijing, because he visited Shanghai in 2006, where he took a silver medal in the World Short Course Championship. He said of urban China, “It reminds me a lot of New York, except with a lot more bikes.”