Beijing Vs Athens - See The Difference

1.Beijing: The 2008 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, will be celebrated in Beijing, People’s Republic of China from August 8 to August 24, 2008

Athens: The 2004 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was celebrated in Athens, Greece, from August 13 to August 29, 2004.

2.Beijing: Ten thousand, five hundred athletes are expected to compete in 302 events in 28 sports, just one event more than was on the schedule of the 2004 games.

Athens: 10,625 athletes competed in 301 events for 28 sports,some 600 more than expected, accompanied by 5,501 team officials from 201 countries.

3.Beijing: The 2008 Beijing Olympics will also mark the third time that Olympic events will have been held in the territories of two different National Olympic Committees (NOC): at the 2008 Olympics, equestrian events will be held in Hong Kong, which competes separately from mainland China.

Athens: Athens 2004 marked the first time since the 1896 Summer Olympics that all countries with a National Olympic Committee were in attendance.

4.Beijing: The Olympic games were awarded to Beijing after an exhaustive ballot of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on July 13, 2001.

Athens: Athens was chosen as the host city during the 106th IOC Session held in Lausanne on September 5, 1997

5.Beijing: The official logo of the games, titled “Dancing Beijing,” features a stylised calligraphic character jīng (京, meaning capital), referencing the host city.

Athens: Ancient victors were crowned with olive wreaths (Greek: kotinos) — a tradition echoed
with this Games’ medalists. The colours of the logo come from the flag of Greece.

6.Beijing: The mascots of Beijing 2008 are the five Fuwa, each representing both a colour of the Olympic rings and a symbol of Chinese culture.

Athens: Mascots have been a tradition at the Olympic Games since the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France. The Athens games had two official mascots: Athiná and Phévos (pronounced in Greek, Athina and Fivos).

7.Beijing: These games will be the first to be produced and broadcast entirely in high definition television, and will likely garner upwards of 4 billion viewers.

Athens: For the first time, major broadcasters were allowed to serve video coverage of the Olympics over the Internet, provided that they restricted this service geographically, to protect broadcasting contracts in other areas. For instance, the BBC made their complete live coverage available to UK high-speed Internet customers for free; customers in the U.S. were only able to receive delayed excerpts

8.Beijing: The opening ceremony of the Olympics in Beijing will be held in the Beijing National Stadium, and begin at 8:00pm CST (12:00 UTC) on 8 August 2008.The choice of date (8/8/0 8) and time reflect the fact that the number 8 is considered lucky in China.
It has been announced that Canada’s Celine Dion, Taiwan’s Jay Chou, Britain’s Sarah Brightman and China’s Liu Huan would perform during the opening ceremony.

Athens: The widely praised Opening Ceremony by avant garde choreographer Dimitris Papaioannou held on August 13, 2004 began with a twenty eight (the number of the Olympiads up to then) second countdown paced by the sounds of an amplified heartbeat. As the countdown was completed, fireworks rumbled and illuminated the skies overhead.the Parade of Nations, during which the Dutch DJ Tiësto provided the music, the Icelandic singer Björk performed the song Oceania, written specially for the event by her and the poet Sjón.

More to come…