Sports and Recreation

The Beijing Olympic games opening ceremonies are scheduled for August 8th and the sporting events will run until August 24th. In keeping with Chinese folklore, the number 8 is a significant one meaning prosperity… therefore, the games official start time is 8:08 and 8 seconds pm local time on the eigth day of the 8th month of 2008.

Monday saw a celebration in the stadium park as the torch was paraded through among dancers and recreation and hoopla. In what may be the last global Olympic torch relay for the world’s sports event, the torch made it’s way through the Sichuan region of China where the powerful earthquake had wreaked damage in May of this year. The IOC Olympic Game committee is considering cancelling all future world torch runs due to security logistics. 

The future ceremonies before the sporting events will likely begin with the torch being lit in Greece and then being moved directly to the host country where the torch relay will take place, as opposed to a multi country torch run.

The sports that will be featured in this years games will be: aquatics, basketball, sailing, shooting, softball, table tennis, taekwondo, boxing, canoeing, cycling, equestrian, fencing, field hockey, football, gymnastics, handball, archery, athletics, badminton, baseball, judo, modern pentathlon, rowing,  tennis, triathlon, volleyball, weightlifting and wrestling…. making a total of 28.