Beijing 2008 - Olympics in China

The Chinese Olympics will take place in 2008, with the games opening on 8th August and closing on 24th August 2008.

The Beijing 2008 games will host 28 sports and 400 events and 303 medals will be awarded. The Olympics in China will take place in four cities: Beijing, Qingdao, Shanghai and Hong Kong. The opening and closing ceremonies will take place in the National Stadium in Beijing that, once completed, will have space for up to 100,000 people and will host athletics and football events.

In view of Beijing 2008 the Chinese authorities have already started a make over of the cities hosting the Olympics. Campaigns and projects to improve the quality of the environment are taking place, such as the citizens planting new trees, diesel particulate filters (DPF) being added to public diesel vehicles and much more. Also, Chinese authorities are encouraging citizens to learn English in order to be able to welcome visitors and they launched a campaign to report anything written in Chinglish. Chinglish is usually translation from Chinese to English that either is wrong or does not make sense. The Chinese authorities have decided to clamp down on Chinglish before the 2008 Beijing Olympics and anybody can report anything written in Chinglish by taking a picture of the text and contacting the authorities.

Beijing 2008 – volunteers programme

Beijing 2008 – Olympic Families Tour of Beijing

Beijing 2008 Olympics are particularly family oriented, with its five cute mascots that will appeal to children and a competition launched on the Olympics official website directed to families. Families will need to tell a family story with photographs, and the best 10 (5 from China, 5 from overseas) will be chosen for a tour of Beijing before the Olympics.