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2008 BEIJING SUMMER OLYMPIC GAMES: Did you know...

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CheeSoonJuan

Guest
2008 BEIJING SUMMER OLYMPIC GAMES: Did you know...
10:00 Fri 01 Aug 2008

• The Beijing Olympics are set to open on 08.08.2008, at 8.08.08pm local time. The eights are by no chance a coincidence – in Chinese folklore, the number 8 stands for prosperity, fortune and wealth.

• The official mascots of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games are the Fuwa (good-luck dolls in Chinese) – five small creatures drawn in the colours of the five Olympic rings. Four of the Fuwa represent China’s most characteristic animals – the fish (this Fuwa character is named Beibei), the panda (Jingjing), the Tibetan antelope (Yingying) and the swallow (Nini), while the fifth Fuwa stands for the Olympic flame (Huanhuan). Each of the Fuwa also incorporates an element of Chinese nature – the sea, forest, fire, earth and sky. Brought together, the names of the Fuwa form the sentence Bei jing huan ying ni, meaning “Welcome to Beijing”.

• There will be 28 sports at the Beijing Olympics, and 302 events (165 men’s, 127 women’s and 10 mixed events). Nine of the events will be new ones. A new cycling discipline will be introduced – BMX. The sports, in alphabetical order, are: aquatics, archery, athletics, badminton, baseball, basketball, boxing, canoeing, cycling, equestrian, fencing, field hockey, football, gymnastics, handball, judo, modern pentathlon, rowing, sailing, shooting, softball, table tennis, taekwondo, tennis, triathlon, volleyball, weightlifting and wrestling.

• The five interconnected rings of the official Olympic flag symbolise the five main continents and the friendship between them gained by participating in the Olympics. The founder of the modern Olympic Games Pierre de Coubertin created the flag in 1914. The colours De Coubertin used: white, red, yellow, green, blue and black, were chosen because at least one of them appeared on the flag of every country in the Olympic Movement. The Olympic flag was first flown at the Olympic Games in 1920.

• The flame is an ancient tradition, resurrected for the Olympic Games in 1928. It was as late as 1936, when Carl Diem, chairman of the organising committee for the 1936 Olympic Games, suggested what is now the modern Olympic Torch relay.

• The last time the Olympic gold medals were made entirely out of gold was in 1912. Nowadays, both gold and silver Olympic medals must be made out of 92.5 per cent silver, with the gold medal covered in six grams of gold.

• The Greek team always leads the procession of athletes at the opening ceremony of the Olympics, followed by the other teams in alphabetical order in the language of the hosting country. The team of the hosting country always appears last.

• It may not attract most people’s attention, but hosts of the Olympics are always cities, rather than countries.

• Women were first allowed to participate in the Olympics in 1900, which was the second modern Olympic Games.

• Tennis was an Olympic sport until 1924. It was re-established 60 years later, in 1988. Meanwhile, motor boating was an official sport at the 1908 Olympics and polo was played at the Olympics in 1900, 1908, 1920, 1924 and 1936.

• Because of the world’s stormy history, the Olympics in 1916, 1940 and 1944 were cancelled.

• At the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896, the winners were awarded silver and those who ranked second received bronze medals. The Games back in 1896 were hardly international as only 13 nations and just more than 300 athletes took part in the Games. In comparison, at Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics the number of the athletes exceeds 10 000.

• The US will have the largest team of athletes at the Games, with more than 600. Afghanistan, on the other hand, will only have four.
 
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