Wednesday, August 27, 2008

2008 Summer Olympics

The 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics came and went without too much going wrong. Todd Bachman, the father-in-law of the US men's volleyball team, was murdered in an attack. His wife was seriously injured, but survived. From Wikipedia:
The 2008 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, was a major international multi-sport event that took place in Beijing, People's Republic of China, from August 8 (except football, which started on August 6) to August 24, 2008. A total of 10,500 athletes competed in 302 events in 28 sports, one event more than was on the schedule of the 2004 Games.[2] The 2008 Beijing Olympics marked the first occasion that either the Summer or Winter Games were hosted in China, making it the 22nd nation to do so. It also became the third time that Olympic events have been held in the territories of two different National Olympic Committees (NOC), as the equestrian events were being held in Hong Kong (the other two instances being the 1956 games, where the equestrian events were hosted in Stockholm, Sweden, due to strict Australian quarantine rules, and the other events were hosted in Melbourne, Australia; and the 1920 games which were hosted in Antwerp, Belgium, but the final two races of the 12ft dinghy event in sailing were held in The Netherlands)…

The Games saw 43 new world records and 132 new Olympic records set.[10] A record 87 countries won a medal during the Games. Chinese athletes won 51 gold medals altogether, the second largest haul by a national team in a modern, non-boycotted Summer Games.[11][12] Michael Phelps broke the record for most golds in one Olympics and for most career gold medals for an Olympian. Usain Bolt secured the traditional title "World's Fastest Man" by setting new world records in the 100m and 200m dashes…

US swimmer Michael Phelps was the big news, achieving his goal of winning eight medals. The US basketball team won gold, as did the US beach volleyball duo May-Treanor and Walsh. A complete medal tally can be seen here.

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