Beijing National Stadium

Main source: Beijing National Stadium

The Beijing National Stadium

The centrepiece of the 2008 Summer Olympics is the Beijing National Stadium, nicknamed the Bird's Nest because of its nest-like skeletal structure.^[18] Construction of the venue began on December 24, 2003. The Guangdong Olympic Stadium was originally planned, constructed, and completed in 2001 to help host the Games, but a decision was made to construct a new stadium in Beijing.^[19][20] Government officials engaged architects worldwide in a design competition. A Swiss firm, Herzog & de Meuron Architekten AG, collaborated with China Architecture Design & Research Group to win the competition. The stadium features a lattice-like steel outer skeleton around the concrete stadium bowl and has a seating capacity of over 90,000 people. Architects originally described the overall design as resembling a bird nest with an immense ocular opening with a retractable roof over the stadium. However, in 2004, the idea of the retractable roof was abandoned for economic and safety reasons. The Beijing National Stadium was the site of the opening and closing ceremonies, as well as the athletics events and soccer finals.

The Beijing Olympic Village opened on July 16, 2008 and to the public on July 26, 2008.

Broadcasting for 2008 Olympic

he 2008 Games were the first to be produced and broadcast entirely in high definition television by the host broadcaster. In comparison, American broadcaster NBC broadcasted only half of the Turin Winter Games produced in HD.^[30][31] In their bid for the Olympic Games in 2001, Beijing confirmed to the Olympic Evaluation Commission "that there will be no restrictions on media reporting and movement of journalists up to and including the Olympic Games,"^[32] but according to a report in The New York Times, "these promises have been contradicted by strict visa rules, lengthy application processes and worries about censorship."^[33]

According to Nielsen Media Research, 4.7 billion viewers worldwide tuned in to some of the television coverage, one-fifth larger than the 3.9 billion who watched the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. The 2008 Olympics was the most-viewed event in American television history.^[34]

Online coverage

American broadcaster NBC produced only 2 hours of online streaming video for the 2006 Winter Games but produced approximately 2,200 hours of coverage for the 2008 Summer Games. For the first time "live online video rights in some markets for the Olympics have been separately negotiated, not part of the overall 'broadcast rights,'"; these new media of the digital economy are growing "nine times faster than the rest of the advertising market."^[35]

Globally, however, the 2008 Olympics is subject to extensive copyright restriction –which amounts to territorial restrictions– whilst still being covered extensively online within various exclusive copyright autarkies. Thus despite the international nature of the event and the global reach of the Internet, the coverage world wide of assorted nation-states and television networks is not readily accessible; there is no global or supranational media coverage as such. The international European Broadcasting Union (EBU), for example, provides live coverage and highlights of all arenas only for certain of its own territories^[36] on their website eurovisionsports.tv.^[37] Many national broadcasters likewise restrict online events to their domestic audiences.^[38]

Despite the contractual obligations of the digital economy, some of the same technologies used to circumvent the Great Firewall of China (such as UltraSurf) can be used to subvert the Olympic media autarkies on the Internet as well.

Torch relay for OLYMPIC 2008

The design of the Olympic Torch is based on traditional scrolls and uses a traditional Chinese design known as the "Propitious Clouds" (祥云). The torch is designed to remain lit in 65 km/h (40 mph) winds, temperatures as low as -40°C and in rain of up to 50 mm (2 in) per hour.

The relay, with the theme Journey of Harmony, lasted 130 days and carried the torch 137,000 km (85,000 mi)—the longest distance of any Olympic torch relay since the tradition began at the 1936 Berlin Games.^[45][46] The torch relay was called a "public relations disaster" for China by The Times,^[47] with protests of China's human rights record, particularly about Tibet.

Route of the 2008 Olympic Torch Relay

The relay began March 24, 2008, in Olympia, Greece. From there, it traveled across Greece to Panathinaiko Stadium in Athens, and then to Beijing, arriving on March 31. From Beijing, the torch followed a route passing through every continent except Antarctica. The torch visited cities on the Silk Road, symbolizing ancient links between China and the rest of the world. A total of 21,880 torchbearers have been selected from around the world by various organizations and entities.^[48]

Participating NOCs

Participating nations

TPE

All but one (Brunei) of the current 205 National Olympic Committees (NOCs)^[70] participated. China and the United States had the largest teams, with 639 and 596^[71][72] competitors respectively. Several countries were represented at the Games by a single athlete.

Three countries participated for their first time: the Marshall Islands, Montenegro and Tuvalu.

South African swimmer Natalie du Toit, five time gold medalist at the Athens Paralympics in 2004, qualified to compete at the Beijing Olympics, thus making history by becoming the first amputee to qualify for the Olympic Games since Olivér Halassy in 1936.^[73][74] Natalia Partyka (who was born without a right forearm) competed in Table Tennis for Poland.^[75]

As in the previous Games since 1984, athletes from the Republic of China (Taiwan) are competing at the Olympics as Chinese Taipei (TPE)^[76] under the Chinese Taipei Olympic flag and using the National Banner Song as their official anthem. The participation of Taiwan had been in doubt due to disagreements over the designation of the team in the Chinese language, and concerns that Taiwan would march in the Opening Ceremony next to the Chinese Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong.^[77] Unlike in previous games, supporters were not able to legally display the flag of the Republic of China even outside the venues.^[78]

Opening ceremony of Olympic 2008

The opening ceremony held in the Beijing National Stadium. It began at 8:00 pm China Standard Time (UTC+8) on August 8, 2008.^[57][58][59] The number 8 is associated with prosperity and confidence in Chinese culture, and here it was a triple eight for the date and one extra for time (close to 08:08:08 pm).^[60] The ceremony was co-directed by Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou and Chinese choreographer Zhang Jigang.^[61] It featured a cast of over 15,000 performers, and was dubbed beforehand as "the most spectacular Olympics Opening Ceremony ever produced".^[62]

A rich assembly of ancient Chinese art and culture dominated the ceremony. It opened with the beating of Fou drums for the countdown. Subsequently, a giant scroll was unveiled and became the show's centerpiece. The official song of the 2008 Olympics, titled You and Me, was performed by Britain's Sarah Brightman and China's Liu Huan, on a large spinning rendition of the globe.^[63] The last recipient in the Olympic Torch relay, former Chinese gymnast Li Ning ignited the cauldron, after being suspended into the air by wires and completing a lap of the National Stadium at Stadium roof height in the air.

The entry parade of the competing athletes differed in order from previous Olympic ceremonies, as the national teams did not enter in alphabetical order by the host nation's alphabet. Since Chinese does not have an alphabet, teams entered the stadium in order (lowest first) of the number of strokes in their Simplified Chinese character transcriptions; this is a common collation method for the Chinese language, such as the surname stroke order system. As a result, Australia (normally one of the first teams to enter the stadium) became one of the final teams to arrive, as the first character of the Chinese name of Australia (澳大利亚) has 16 strokes. The Olympic traditions of Greece entering first and the host nation (China) entering last were still observed.

The opening ceremony was lauded by spectators and various international presses as spectacular and spellbinding.^[64] Hein Verbruggen, chairman of the IOC Coordination Commission for the XXIX Olympiad, called the ceremony "a grand, unprecedented success."^[65] A review of the opening ceremony from around the world called it "spectacular and devoid of politics".^[66] It was deemed that the real fireworks were too dangerous to film from a helicopter; as such, some footage were generated to provide simulated aerial shots of the scene. Another cosmetic enhancement in China's quest for a "perfect" Summer Games was using 9-year-old Lin Miaoke to lip-sync over the singing voice of Yang Peiyi for the opening ceremony song Ode to the Motherland. Miss Yang, 7, had reportedly won a "grueling" competition to be chosen as the performer, but was considered to be insufficiently photogenic, and a member of the Politburo who oversaw the final preparations ordered that Miss Lin appear in Miss Yang's place. ^[67] Another portion of the ceremony featured 56 children carrying a large Chinese flag, with 55 of them dressed in traditional costumes of the ethnic minorities of China. The children wearing the ethnic minority costumes were described in the official program as members of these minorities, but it was later revealed that they were actually Han Chinese. ^[68]

More than 100 sovereigns, heads of state and heads of government as well as 170 Ministers of Sport attended the Beijing Olympic Games.^[69]

Amateurism and professionalism

The ethos of the aristocracy as exemplified in the English public schools greatly influenced Pierre de Coubertin.^[61] The public schools subscribed to the Ancient Greek and Roman belief that sport formed an important part of education, an attitude summed up in the saying: mens sana in corpore sano – a sound mind in a healthy body. In this ethos, a gentleman was one who became an all–rounder, not the best at one specific thing. There was also a prevailing concept of "fairness," in which practicing or training was considered tantamount to cheating.^[61] Those who practiced a sport professionally were considered to have an unfair advantage over those who practiced it merely as a "hobby." ^[61]

The exclusion of professionals has caused several controversies throughout the history of the modern Olympics. 1912 Olympic pentathlon and decathlon champion Jim Thorpe, was stripped of his medals when it was discovered that he played semi–professional baseball prior to winning his medals. He was restored as champion on compassionate grounds by the IOC in 1983.^[62] Swiss and Austrian skiers boycotted the 1936 Winter Olympics in support of their skiing teachers, who were not allowed to compete because they earned money with their sport and were considered professionals

Sports

Currently, the Olympic program consists of 35 sports, 53 disciplines and more than 400 events. The Summer Olympic program includes 28 sports with 38 disciplines, and the Winter Olympic program is comprised of 7 sports with 15 disciplines.^[57] There were 9 sports on the original Olympic program in 1896: athletics, cycling, fencing, gymnastics, weightlifting, shooting, swimming, tennis, and wrestling. If the 1896 rowing events had not been cancelled due to bad weather, they would have been included in this list as well.^[58]

Of the 15 disciplines in 7 sports featured at the most recent Winter Olympics; cross country skiing, figure skating, ice hockey, Nordic combined, ski jumping, and speed skating have been on the program at all Winter Olympics. In addition, figure skating made its debut at the London Summer Olympics of 1908 and ice hockey was first contested at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp before the introduction of a separate Winter Games.^[59]