Olympic Games 2008
The Beijing Olympics
The Olympic Games 2008 in Beijing are set to be the biggest and most entertaining ever, with hundreds of events taking place between August 8 and 24 2008. Find out about Beijing's bid to host the Games, Olympic Venues and Olympic sports and New Zealand Olympic history.
The 2008 Summer Olympic Games are set to start on August 8 and run through to August 24 in Beijing this year. The event will see approximately 10,500 athletes compete for the top spots in the world's biggest sporting event.
Why Beijing?
After a strenuous bid in 2001, Beijing was awarded the host city rights for the 2008 Olympics. The final ballot was run by the Olympic Committee and had four other cities in the running for the games: Toronto, Paris, Istanbul and Osaka. The official Olympic city is chosen for each Games approximately 7 years before the Games are to commence. Candidates are taken into consideration based on a city's vision for the Games, governmental support, political situation, tourism potential, finance and budget, and several other aspects - down to the amount of hotel rooms (or planned hotel rooms) within a 10km radius of the city centre.
The Chinese promoted their capital city to highlight the country's emergence within the world economy, despite several environmental concerns and claims of human rights abuse in Tibet - which several nations have protested against. The games have created thousands of jobs for local Chinese - particularly in merchandise manufacturing, where official Olympic merchandise suppliers already stock over 5000 different products, with thousands of unlicensed alternatives also being manufactured.
The 2008 Olympic mascot is the Dancing Beijing, which was unveiled in 2003. The logo encompasses aspects of traditional Chinese society - a red seal and calligraphic word for ‘national capital', stylised in the form of a runner.
Venues
31 purpose-built venues have been constructed or refurbished in Beijing for the games, with an additional 6 venues outside of the city (including equestrian venues - as all equestrian events will be held in Hong Kong, where quarantine procedures will allow horses to return home without concerns for their health). The primary venue in Beijing is the Beijing National Stadium which will host athletics and football sports, and has a capacity of 91,000. The opening and closing ceremonies will also be held here. Most of the other major venues have capacities of between 8,000 and 19,000 ticketholders.
Events
A whopping 302 events will see the world's top athletes compete this year, in a total of 28 sports groupings. New additions to the 2008 games include forms of BMX bicycle riding and marathon swimming events, along with variations to existing events such as opening the steeplechase to female competitors.
Athletics is one of the biggest crowd drawing sports groupings at any Olympic Games, this year consisting of 47 different events. Other sports with a large range of events include swimming (34 events), gymnastics (18), wrestling (18), canoeing (16) weightlifting (15), shooting (15) and rowing (14). The majority of other sporting groups include less than 5 events per sport.
New Zealand and the Olympics
Due to costs and travel distances, New Zealand Olympians failed to represent our country in the first three modern Olympic Games in Athens (1896), Paris (1900) and St Louis (1904). For the first two Olympic Games which New Zealand competed in, we teamed with Australia to compete as ‘Australasia'. The first gold medal won by a New Zealander was at the 1912 Games in Stockholm by relay swimmer Malcolm Champion.
Throughout the 1900s, New Zealand saw several national icons compete and make history for the nation, including:
- Sprinter Arthur Porritt (1924)
- Boxer Ted Morgan (1928)
- Runner Jack Lovelock (1928)
- Rowers Fred Thompson and Bob Stiles (1932)
- Long jumper Yvette Williams (first NZ female gold medallist - 1952)
- Walker Norman Read (1956)
- Yachting duo Peter Mander and Jack Cropp (1956)
- Runner Peter Snell (1960, 64)
- Runner Murray Halberg (1960)
- Yachting duo Helmer Pederson and Earle Wells (1964)
- Rower Ian Ballinger (1968)
- Rower Simon Dickie (1968, 72)
- Runner John Walker (1976)
- Equestrian Mark Todd (1984, 88)
- Canoeist Ian Ferguson (1984, 88)
- Canoeist Paul MacDonald (1984, 88)
- Yachter Russell Coutts (1984)
- Yachting duo Rex Sellars and Chris Timms (1984)
- Boardsailer Barbara Kendall (1992)
- Yachting duo Don Cowie and Rod Davis (1992)
- Yachting duo Leslie Egnot and Jan Shearer (1992)
- Swimmer Danyon Loader (1992, 96)
- Equestrian Blyth Tait (1992, 96)
- Equestrian Sally Clark (1992)
After a spectacular reign during the 1980s and 1990s, the New Zealand teams have produced less desirable results since Sydney in 2000, with only a handful of honourable mentions: rower Rob Waddell (2000), triathletes Hamish Carter and Bevan Docherty (2004), cyclist Sarah Ulmer (2004) and rowing twins Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell (2004).
The New Zealand 2008 Olympic team will see several young athletes compete for the first time, as well as old timers Mark Todd and Andrew Nicholson who will make New Zealand Olympic history - competing in their sixth Olympic Games.
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Sports images from Flickr: 2008 Olympic Games Countdown, Yachts and Cricket.
