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Beijing Olympics 2008
August 24, 2008: Beijing bids goodbye with the closing ceremony of the Olympic
games on Sunday. The dazzling ceremony brought the curtains down on the most spectacular Olympics yet. London hosts the next
games in 2012.
August 20, 2008: India's Sushil Kumar won a bronze in the men's 66kg
freestyle, and Vijender Kumar the boxer won a bronze in the men's middleweight (75kg.).
August 17, 2008: Michael Phelps, the US swimmer became the greatest
Olympian by taking his gold Tally to a record 8th on Sunday.
August 11, 2008: Abhinav Bindra won India its first ever individual Gold medal in Beijing at the
Olympic 10m air rifle event. The final round went to the last shot and Abhinav
finally won the event with 700.5 points.
A medal in this event was not completely unexpected. Abhinav Bindra had broken
the Olympic record last Olympic but failed to win a medal. Bindra was 4th in the
qualifiers. He won the the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna for 2001- 2002. An MBA degree
holder, 25-year old Abhinav of Chandigarh is the CEO of Abhinav Futuristics.
The Beijing Olympics 2008 got under way on Friday night with opening ceremony
commenced at 8.08 PM on 8/8/08. It was an entertaining show of colour and
splendor a rare show to mark the beginning of the 29th Olympic Games here.
Watched by the most powerful leaders of the world, including
US president George W Bush, Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi and more than 80 state leaders, the Chinese put up a show that will not be easy to forget
and hard to match. For three-and- a-half hours, performers, who blended the ancient with the modern and tradition with
progress, kept the audience enthralled with the fireworks.
The theme of "One World, One Dream" and the theme song,
˜You and Me" highlighted by 2008 smiling faces collected from around the world made for another interesting segment during the course of a memorable evening.
It was an emphatic display of China's long traditions of showmanship, and a
worldwide audience of up to four billion surely looked on in awed admiration. 56 children, one from each of China's ethnic groups, brought the Chinese
flag into the stadium, a 25m x 100m scroll unfurled to form a giant screen onto
which oimages of China's 5,000-year history were projected. A choir of 3,000 dressed as disciples of Confucius and waving bamboo slips – an
early form of book – chanted lines from his greatest work of philosophy, the Analects.
The athletes march-past, though the longest segment of the opening ceremony, is something athletes dream about.
Greece came first, in accordance with tradition, with China at the rear with 639 athletes, its largest ever squad.
The athletes march-past headed by Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore for India.
Rajyavardhan Rathore had said that it was an honour to carry the Indian flag into the stadium and Leander Paes had spoken about it passionately. And they were the smartest turned out of the Indian lot in
sherwanis. |
Olympics 2008 Fact
The XXIX OLYMPIAD
BEIJING- August 8 to 24
No. of Disciplines: 28
Slogan: One world, one dream
Concepts: Green Olympics
Hightech, People Olympics
Emblem: Chinese Seal- dancing
Events: 302
(165 males,127 females, 10 mixed)
No. of Athletes: 10700
Venues: 37
No. of Media persons:
21600 from 200 countries
No. of volunteers: 5,00,000
Total cost of hosting games:
Over 40 billion Dollars
Abhinav Bindra
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