China s Olympic Games this year are in 2008

"8 p.m. on August 8, 2008", this set of figures has become the object of hype in the past few days because it is related to the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games. Agence France-Presse even reported on November 5 that "the Beijing Olympics will be mired in traditional Chinese superstitions."

According to Chinese numbers of fortune and misfortune, '8' is the most auspicious number. '8' is similar in pronunciation to 'fat' and means to get rich. Today, the reporter visited the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee on this matter, the relevant person in charge of the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee said that the opening time of the Olympic Games is roughly set, this is no longer news, as early as more than one year ago, the Olympic Organizing Committee tentatively set the opening time at 8 o'clock in the evening, this is just an intentional time, "We advise ** not to hype up this time issue, because whether it will open at 8 p.m. on August 8, we can not give a very positive answer now."

The Olympic Organizing Committee said that on the evening of September 21, we have officially launched the "countdown clock" of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games in the square in front of the West Gate of the National Museum. The timer on the 'countdown clock' has been accurate to the second, i.e. it was set at 8 p.m. on 8 August 2008 as the opening time. But this is only a preliminary intention.

In response to the AFP report, the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee said: "We did not deliberately set the opening time of the Olympic Games at the time related to '8' as reported by AFP, and even the date of the Olympic Games 'August 8' was not set by us, but by the International Olympic Committee." Because the Olympic Games are not the Olympic Games for Chinese, but the Olympic Games for people all over the world, we only have the right to suggest the date of the Olympic Games, and the specific date is finally made by the IOC after all-round consideration.

"We had suggested to the IOC to move the date back to August 15 to August 31, but the IOC rejected it because some members of the United States believed that it was a collision with the US Open and Major League Baseball," he added. Therefore, in order to avoid conflict with other events, the IOC has set the date of the Beijing Olympics for August 8.

However, the exact time of the opening is determined by the host country. We initially set the opening time at '8 p.m.' because we took into account that most of the large-scale cultural events held in China will open at 8 p.m., and on the opening day of the Olympic Games, there will definitely be fireworks to be released, and the time for the fireworks to be released should not be too early or too late, so we will calculate the 'countdown clock' of the Beijing Olympic Games at 8 p.m. first. But whether it opens at 8 p.m., we can't give you a completely positive answer. ‘