50 Fun Facts About 2008 Summer Olympics

Which stone was set into the back of every medal at the 2008 Olympics, a first for the Summer Games?

Jade formed a ring around the Games logo on the reverse of each medal. No Summer Olympic host before had added a material other than metal, though three Winter hosts had.

What did Cuban taekwondo fighter Ángel Matos do after being disqualified at the 2008 Olympics, earning a life ban?

Matos kicked the referee in the face after overrunning a one-minute injury time-out in his bronze-medal match. His coach was banned for life with him.

What was later revealed about nine-year-old Lin Miaoke's song at the 2008 Olympic opening ceremony?

Another girl sang it: Lin Miaoke mimed to a recording by Yang Peiyi, who stayed out of sight. The ceremony's music director admitted the switch a few days later.

Usain Bolt won the 2008 Olympic 100 metres in a world-record 9.69 seconds despite doing what before the finish?

Celebrating early, Bolt spread his arms and slapped his chest with the race already won. A year later he ran through the line in Berlin and cut the record to 9.58.

How many gold medals did swimmer Michael Phelps win at the 2008 Olympics, a record for a single Games?

Eight golds from as many events put Phelps ahead of every athlete at any one Olympics, and all but one came in world-record time. His career total reached 14, another record.

Which country won the most gold medals at the 2008 Olympics, finishing top of the table for the first time?

China won 48 golds on home soil to the Americans' 36. It had 51 on the day, before doping retests took three away, and the United States still won more medals overall, 112 to 100.

Which footballer kicked a ball into the crowd during London's handover segment of the 2008 Olympic closing ceremony?

David Beckham appeared with Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page and singer Leona Lewis as a double-decker bus circled the stadium to hand the Games on to London.

What did wrestler Ara Abrahamian do with his 2008 Olympic bronze medal, protesting a semi-final ruling?

He left it on the mat in the middle of the ceremony and walked out. The IOC then took the bronze away altogether, ruling that he had violated the spirit of fair play.

Which NBA star carried the host nation's flag at the 2008 Olympic opening ceremony beside a young earthquake survivor?

Yao Ming walked in with Lin Hao, a nine-year-old who had rescued two schoolmates from the Sichuan earthquake three months earlier.

The 2008 Olympic torch relay took a flame to the top of which mountain, closed to other climbers for the occasion?

Mount Everest was summited on 8 May by a second flame, which later rejoined the main relay on its way to the opening ceremony.

Which country finished fourth in the 2008 Olympic medal table with 19 golds, its most at any Games in a century?

Great Britain had not won so many since it hosted the Games in 1908, and its cyclists alone brought home 14 medals.

Which country's women swept the medals in the 2008 Olympic 100 metres, a day after its men's sprint triumph?

Jamaica's Shelly-Ann Fraser won, and two teammates could not be separated behind her, so the race ended with two silver medals and no bronze.

Shooter Abhinav Bindra's air rifle win at the 2008 Olympics was the first individual gold medal for which country?

India's best individual results until then had been silver medals, the first two won by the sprinter Norman Pritchard in Paris back in 1900.

Judoka Naidangiin Tüvshinbayar won the first ever Olympic gold for which landlocked Asian country at the 2008 Games?

Mongolia had held the record for the most Olympic medals without a gold. A boxer, Enkhbatyn Badar-Uugan, won its second later in the same Games.

Taekwondo fighter Rohullah Nikpai won bronze at the 2008 Olympics, the first Olympic medal ever for which country?

Afghanistan's president phoned Nikpai at once to congratulate him, then rewarded him with a house and a car at the government's expense.

French-born slalom kayaker Benjamin Boukpeti won the first Olympic medal for which West African country in 2008?

Togo was his father's homeland, and Boukpeti chose to race for it while his elder brother paddled for the French flatwater team.

Which island nation won men's handball silver at the 2008 Olympics, its first ever medal in a team sport?

Iceland lost the final to France, but the silver was only the fourth Olympic medal of any kind in the country's history.

Swimmer Kirsty Coventry won every one of which African country's four medals at the 2008 Olympics?

Zimbabwe's Coventry kept her 200 m backstroke title and added three silvers. In 2025 she became the first woman to lead the International Olympic Committee.

In which sport did the host nation win every gold medal at the 2008 Olympics, two of them in new team events?

Table tennis was so one-sided, with the hosts also filling both singles podiums, that each country was cut to two singles players for 2012.

Michael Phelps's 2008 Olympic gold haul beat a single-Games record set in Munich in 1972 by which swimmer?

Mark Spitz won seven golds in Munich, every one of them in world-record time, and nobody matched his haul for 36 years.

Michael Phelps won which 100 metres final at the 2008 Olympics by a single hundredth of a second?

Butterfly was the stroke, and Serbia's Milorad Čavić the man out-touched. Serbia filed a protest, but officials reviewed the video and upheld the result.

Which American swimmer overhauled France's Alain Bernard on the final leg of the 2008 Olympic 4x100 m freestyle relay?

Jason Lezak's closing 46.06 was the fastest split the event had ever seen, and it kept alive Michael Phelps's hopes of a record gold haul.

What went wrong for Michael Phelps midway through one 2008 Olympic final, which he still won in world-record time?

His goggles filled with water, leaving him unable to see anything for the last 100 metres of the race. He still beat the field by almost seven-tenths of a second.

Which swimsuit, tested in NASA wind tunnels, was worn for 23 of the 25 swimming world records at the 2008 Olympics?

The LZR Racer, made by Speedo, was also worn by 98% of the swimming medallists in Beijing. Full-body suits of its kind have since been banned from competition.

Usain Bolt's 19.30 seconds at the 2008 Olympics broke a 200 metres world record set in 1996 by which American?

Michael Johnson had predicted before the final that his 19.32 from the Atlanta Olympics would survive. Bolt beat it by two hundredths of a second.

Why did Usain Bolt lose his 2008 Olympic 4x100 metres relay gold nine years later?

A teammate failed a drug retest: Nesta Carter's stored sample was found to contain a banned stimulant, so in 2017 all four runners lost their golds.

What mishap put both United States 4x100 metres relay teams out of the 2008 Olympics before the finals?

Dropped batons at the last handover ended both races: Tyson Gay never got hold of his in the men's heat, and the women's anchor exchange failed the same way.

Which defending 110 m hurdles champion, the home crowd's favourite, limped out of his heat at the 2008 Olympics?

Liu Xiang walked off with an inflamed Achilles tendon after another runner's false start, leaving the National Stadium crowd in stunned silence.

Which Russian pole vaulter cleared a world-record 5.05 metres to keep her Olympic title at the 2008 Games?

Yelena Isinbayeva had the gold won after only two vaults, then kept raising the bar until she had broken the world record for the 24th time.

Kenenisa Bekele and Tirunesh Dibaba each won both the 5,000 and 10,000 metres at the 2008 Olympics for which country?

Ethiopia's Bekele set an Olympic record in each of his two races, and Dibaba matched his double in the women's events.

Which artist was the design consultant on the 2008 Olympic Bird's Nest stadium, then spoke out against the Games?

Ai Weiwei worked on the stadium with the Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron. Asked later why he had taken part at all, he said he did it out of a love of design.

Which film director, whose early work was banned at home, was chief director of the 2008 Olympic opening ceremony?

Zhang Yimou shared a Peabody Award with the ceremony itself, and was invited back to direct the ceremonies of Beijing's Winter Olympics in 2022.

Which former gymnast lit the 2008 Olympic cauldron after appearing to run through the air around the stadium's rim?

Li Ning, winner of six medals at the 1984 Olympics, was hoisted on cables for the stunt. By 2008 he was also known for the sportswear company that carries his name.

What was later admitted about the firework 'footprints' that TV viewers saw at the 2008 Olympic opening ceremony?

Most were computer-generated: the real fireworks did go off, but filming all 29 from helicopters was judged too dangerous, so 27 were animated for television.

Jingjing, one of the five Fuwa mascots of the 2008 Olympics, was modelled on which animal?

The giant panda Jingjing stood for the forest. Read together, the five mascots' names form a sentence meaning that Beijing welcomes you.

Beijing's Water Cube, the 2008 Olympic swimming venue, became the 'Ice Cube' for which sport at the 2022 Winter Games?

Curling moved in for 2022 after ice-making and climate-control equipment was added, which lets the hall switch between a pool and a rink.

Which city staged the 2008 Olympic equestrian events, far from Beijing, thanks to its strict horse quarantine system?

Hong Kong had built its quarantine rules around a horse racing industry dating from colonial days, so it carried less risk of equine disease than mainland cities.

Protests over which region dogged the 2008 Olympic torch relay in London, Paris and San Francisco?

Tibet's supporters demonstrated along the route, forcing organisers to change or shorten it more than once. In Paris the torch was put out several times.

Beijing won the right to host the 2008 Olympics in a 2001 vote; which Canadian city finished second?

Toronto took 22 votes in the deciding round in Moscow, fewer than half of Beijing's total. Paris, Istanbul and Osaka were the other candidates.

Which country, at war with Russia during the 2008 Olympics, saw its shooter embrace a Russian rival on the podium?

Georgia's Nino Salukvadze took bronze and Russia's Natalia Paderina silver in the 10 m air pistol, and the two hugged and shook hands at the ceremony.

The USA's 'Redeem Team' of Kobe Bryant and LeBron James beat which country in the 2008 Olympic basketball final?

Spain went down 118–107. The Americans' nickname, a play on the 1992 Dream Team, marked their recovery from disappointing bronze medals in 2004 and 2006.

Which country won men's football gold at the 2008 Olympics, its 12th straight Olympic match win, by beating Nigeria 1-0?

Argentina had also won all six of its matches in 2004. FIFA singled out a young Lionel Messi for troubling defenders more than anyone else in the tournament.

Which tennis player won 2008 Olympic men's singles gold weeks after beating Roger Federer in the Wimbledon final?

Rafael Nadal beat Chile's Fernando González in straight sets in the final, in the same year that he became world number one for the first time.

Which American gymnast won the 2008 Olympic women's all-around title, with teammate Shawn Johnson taking silver?

Nastia Liukin was coached by her father Valeri, who had won gold for the Soviet Union in 1988. She went home from her only Olympics with five medals.

Which Australian diver's last dive in the 10 m platform final stopped the hosts sweeping every 2008 Olympic diving gold?

Matthew Mitcham stood second before that dive, which scored 112.10, then the highest score for a single dive in Olympic history. No Australian man had won diving gold since 1924.

Which coastal city staged the 2008 Olympic sailing, after crews cleared a huge algae bloom from the course?

Qingdao, on the Yellow Sea, blamed the bloom on the temperature and salinity of the water, and had the racing area cleared by mid-July.

Which marathon world-record holder skipped the 2008 Olympic marathon because of Beijing's air pollution?

Haile Gebrselassie raced on the track in Beijing instead, then later that year broke his own marathon world record in Berlin by 27 seconds.

Which 21-year-old won the 2008 Olympic marathon in record time, the first Kenyan ever to take the title?

Samuel Wanjiru's 2:06:32 was an Olympic record. He died less than three years later, aged only 24.

Which teenage swimmer from Mansfield broke Janet Evans's 19-year-old 800 m freestyle world record at the 2008 Olympics?

Rebecca Adlington was born in the year Evans set that record. She also won the 400 m freestyle, her country's first two-gold swimmer at one Games since 1908.

Which IOC president chided Usain Bolt at the 2008 Olympics, saying he should show more respect for his rivals?

Jacques Rogge said Bolt's antics were not how a champion should behave. One American columnist hit back by calling Rogge a stiff-collared bureaucrat.