Beijing olympics-fact sheet

1.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.

2.Ten thousand, five hundred athletes are expected to compete in 302 events in 28 sports.

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

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

5.The mascots of Beijing 2008 are the five Fuwa, each representing both a colour of the Olympic rings and a symbol of Chinese culture.The five Fuwa are named Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying, and Nini.

6.The Olympic slogan,

One World, One Dream

, calls upon the world to unite in the Olympic spirit.It was chosen from over 210,000 entries submitted from around the world.

7.A total of 37 venues will be used to host the events including 12 newly constructed venues.

8.Its largest architectural pieces will be the Beijing National Stadium, Beijing National Indoor Stadium, Beijing National Aquatics Centre, Olympic Green Convention Centre, Olympic Green, and Beijing Wukesong Culture & Sports Center.

9.The centrepiece of the 2008 Summer Olympics will be the Beijing National Stadium, nicknamed the “Bird nest” because of its nest-like skeletal structure.

10.During the games, 2,500 large-size buses and 4,500 minibuses will be operated by a total of 8,000 drivers to transport people across various venues.

11.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 kilometer per hour winds, and in rain of up to 50 millimeters per hour.

12.The relay, with the theme Journey of Harmony, is expected to last 130 days and carry 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.

13.A total of 21,880 torchbearers have been selected from around the world by various organizations and entities.

14.The flame was carried to the top of Mount Everest on a 108 km (67 mi) long “highway” scaling the Tibetan side of the mountain especially built for the relay.

15.The opening ceremony of the Olympics in Beijing will be held in the Beijing National Stadium, and begin at 8:08pm CST (12:08 UTC) on 8 August 2008.

16.United States will bring about 600 competitors to the games, their largest Olympic team thus far. On the Other hand Afghanistan will be represented by just four competitors.

17.South African swimmer Natalie du Toit, five time gold medalist at the Athens Paralympics in 2004, has 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. Natalia Partyka (who was born without a right forearm) will compete in Table Tennis for Poland.

18.The 2008 Olympics will see the return of 28 sports, and will hold 302 events (165 men’s events, 127 women’s events, and 10 mixed events), one event more in total than in Athens.

19.The Olympic motto “Citius, Altius, Fortius” is Latin for “Faster, Higher, Braver,” but is universally accepted to mean “Swifter, Higher, Stronger.”

Athens vs Beijing

Read More Wikipedia
Beijing National Stadium -Technical View

20.Participating countries in Beijing Olympics with no. of participants
• Afghanistan (4)
• Albania (11)
• Algeria (
• American Samoa (4)
• Andorra (5)
• Angola (26)
• Antigua and Barbuda
• Argentina (13
• Armenia (25)
• Aruba (2)
• Australia (433)
• Austria (72)
• Azerbaijan (39)
• Bahamas (19)
• Bahrain (11)
• Bangladesh (5)
• Barbados (
• Belarus (20
• Belgium (94)
• Belize (3)
• Benin (3)
• Bermuda (6)
• Bhutan (2)
• Bolivia (6)
• Bosnia and Herzegovina (5)
• Botswana (2)
• Brazil (277)
• British Virgin Islands (2)
• Brunei (2)
• Bulgaria (72)
• Burkina Faso (4)
• Burundi (3)
• Cambodia (6)
• Cameroon (3)
• Canada (331)
• Cape Verde (3)
• Cayman Islands (3)
• Central African Republic (3)
• Chad (2)
• Chile (27)
• China (639)
• Chinese Taipei (80)
• Colombia (64)
• Comoros (3)
• DR Congo (2)
• Congo (3)
• Cook Islands (4)
• Costa Rica (6)
• Côte d’Ivoire
• Croatia (106)
• Cuba (149)
• Cyprus (17)
• Czech Republic (130)
• Denmark (83)
• Djibouti (4)
• Dominica
• Dominican Republic (23)
• Ecuador (25)
• Egypt (103)
• El Salvador (11)
• Equatorial Guinea (3)
• Eritrea (11)
• Estonia (47)
• Ethiopia (36)
• Fiji (6)
• Finland (55)
• France (323)
• FS Micronesia
• FYR Macedonia (7)
• Gabon (4)
• Gambia (3)
• Georgia (35)
• Germany (439)
• Ghana (9)
• Great Britain (313)
• Greece (159)
• Grenada (1)
• Guam (5)
• Guatemala (12)
• Guinea (1)
• Guinea-Bissau (3)
• Guyana (4)
• Haiti (1)
• Honduras (25)
• Hong Kong, China (34)
• Hungary (171)
• Iceland (26)
• India (57)
• Indonesia (24)
• Iran (55)
• Iraq (2)
• Ireland (54)
• Israel (43)
• Italy (344)
• Jamaica (56)
• Japan (351)
• Jordan (7)
• Kazakhstan (132)
• Kenya (56)
• Kiribati (3)
• South Korea (267)
• North Korea (63)
• Kuwait (6)
• Kyrgyzstan (21)
• Laos (4)
• Latvia (49)
• Lebanon (5)
• Lesotho (4)
• Liberia (3)
• Libya (7)
• Liechtenstein (2)
• Lithuania (69)
• Luxembourg (12)
• Madagascar (4)
• Malawi (4)
• Malaysia (27)
• Maldives (4)
• Mali (12)
• Malta (6)
• Marshall Islands (5)
• Mauritania (2)
• Mauritius (3)
• Mexico (85)
• Moldova (31)
• Monaco (2)
• Mongolia (29)
• Montenegro (17)
• Morocco (49)
• Mozambique (6)
• Myanmar (6)
• Namibia (9)
• Nauru (1)
• Nepal (7)
• Netherlands (245)
• Netherlands Antilles (3)
• New Zealand (182)
• Nicaragua (6)
• Niger
• Nigeria (33)
• Norway (85)
• Oman (4)
• Pakistan (21)
• Palau (4)
• Palestine (4)
• Panama (3)
• Papua New Guinea (7)
• Paraguay (5)
• Peru (12)
• Philippines (15)
• Poland (26
• Portugal (7
• Puerto Rico (22)
• Qatar (22)
• Romania (102)
• Russia (467)
• Rwanda (4)
• Saint Kitts and Nevis
• Saint Lucia
• Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
• São Tomé and Príncipe (3)
• Samoa (6)
• San Marino (4)
• Saudi Arabia (16)
• Senegal (
• Serbia (92)
• Seychelles (
• Sierra Leone (2)
• Singapore (25)
• Slovakia (57)
• Slovenia (62)
• Solomon Islands (3)
• Somalia (2)
• South Africa (136)
• Spain (287)
• Sri Lanka (
• Sudan (9)
• Suriname (4)
• Swaziland (4)
• Sweden (97)
• Switzerland (84)
• Syria (7)
• Tajikistan (13)
• Tanzania
• Thailand (25)
• Timor-Leste (2)
• Togo (1)
• Tonga (3)
• Trinidad and Tobago (2
• Tunisia (32)
• Turkey (6
• Turkmenistan (10)
• Tuvalu (3)
• Uganda (11)
• Ukraine (54)
• United Arab Emirates (5)
• United States (596)
• Uruguay (12)
• Uzbekistan (5
• Vanuatu (3)
• Venezuela (109)
• Vietnam (21)
• Virgin Islands (5)
• Yemen (5)
• Zambia (7)
• Zimbabwe (13)

FACTS

1. The longest one-syllable word in the English language is "screeched."

2. "Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt"

3. Almonds are members of the peach family.

4. The symbol on the "pound" key (#) is called an octothorpe.

5. The dot over the letter 'i' is called a tittle.

6. Ingrown toenails are hereditary.

7. The word "set" has more definitions than any other word in the English language.

8. "Underground" is the only word in the English language that begins and ends with the letters "und."

9. There are only four words in the English language which end in "-dous": tremendous,
horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.

10. The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is "pneumonoultramicros copicsilicovolca noconiosis."

11. The only other word with the same amount of letters is its plural: pneumonoultramicros copicsilicovolca noconiosesl.

12. The longest place-name still in use is "Taumatawhakatangiha ngakoauauotamate aturipukakapikim aungahoronukupok aiwe-nuakit natahu", a New Zealand hill.

13. Los Angeles's full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reinade los Angeles de Porciuncula" and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size,L.A.

14. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.

15. Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.

16. Alfred Hitchcock didn't have a belly button. It was eliminated when he was sewn up after surgery.

17. Telly Savalas and Louis Armstrong died on their birthdays.

18. Donald Duck's middle name is Fauntleroy.

19. The muzzle of a lion is like a fingerprint - no two lions have the same pattern of whiskers.

20. A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.

21. There is a seven-letter word in the English language that contains ten words without rearranging any of its letters, "therein": the,there, he, in, rein, her, here, ere, therein, herein.

22. Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.

23. A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.

24. It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.

25. Cranberries are sorted for ripeness by bouncing them; a fully ripened cranberry can be
dribbled like a basketball.

26. The letters KGB stand for Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti

27. 'Stewardesses' is the longest English word that is typed with only the left hand.

28. The combination "ough" can be pronounced in nine different ways; the following sentence
contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."

29. The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.

30. Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct order, as does arsenious, meaning "containing arsenic."

31. Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the Australian seal for that reason.

32. Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have about ten.

33. The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat," which means "the king is dead."

34. The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when the engines
were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk
up straight staircases.

35.Coca-Cola was originally green.

36.The most common name in the world is Mohammed.

37.The name of all the continents end with the same letter that they startwith.

38.The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.

39.There are two credit cards for every person in the United States.

40.TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only one row ! of the keyboard.

41.Women blink nearly twice as much as men!!

42.You can't kill yourself by holding your breath.

43.It is impossible to lick your elbow.

44.People say "Bless you" when you sneeze because when you sneeze, your heartstops for a millisecond.

45.It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.

46.The "sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language.

47.If you sneeze too hard, you can fracture a rib.

48.If you try to suppress asneeze, you can rupturea blood vessel in your head or neck and die.

49.Each king in a deck of playing cards represents great king from history.

50. Spades - King David
Clubs - Alexander the Great
Hearts - Charlemagne
Diamonds - Julius Caesar.

51. 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

52.If a statue of a person in the park on a horse has both front legs in theair, the person died in battle.If the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result ofwounds received in b attle. If the horse has all four legs on the ground,the person died of natural causes.

54.What do bullet proof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers and laserprinters all have in common?
Ans. - All invented by women.

55.Question - This is the only food that doesn't spoil. What is this?
Ans. - HoneyA crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.

56.A snail can sleep for three years.

57.All polar bears are left handed.Butterflies taste with their feet.

58.Elephants are the only animals that can't jump.

59.In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.

60.On average, people fear spiders more than they do death.

61.Shakespeare invented the word 'assassination' and 'bump'.

62.Stewardesses is the longest word typed with only the left hand.

63.The ant always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.

64.The electric chair was invented by a dentist.

65.The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body tosquirt blood 30 feet.

66.Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have overmillion descendants.

67.Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your earby 700 times.

68.The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.

69.Most lipstick contains fish scales.

70.Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different.