Why the Olympics were held on 8 8

August 8, 2008 at 8 p.m.", this set of numbers because it is related to the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games, has become the object of hype in the past few days. 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 a kind of 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.

Originally, the Olympic Organizing Committee set the opening of the Beijing Olympic Games on July 25, 2008, but the end of July was the rainy season in Beijing, so it was not suitable for the Games, and because the opening of the Olympic Games was used to be on the weekend (the 25th was Friday), China suggested that it be postponed for a few weeks, and China suggested that it should be held on August 15 in 3 weeks, and finally the Olympic Organizing Committee decided to push 2 weeks to August 8, 2008, so it was just a coincidence and not the so-called 8 auspicious or something.

8 is an auspicious number, you see how many people grab the mobile phone number, 8.

29th Summer Olympic Games.

The host city of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games is Beijing, with Shanghai, Tianjin, Shenyang, Qinhuangdao and Qingdao as co-host cities. Hong Kong undertakes equestrian events.

In the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, there were 204 participating countries and regions, 11,438 athletes, 28 major events and 302 small events, and more than 60,000 athletes, coaches and runners participated.

its slogan. The slogan of the 29th Beijing Olympic Games in 2008 was: "One World, One Dream".

On June 26, 2005, the slogan of the 29th Beijing Olympic Games in 2008 was officially released at the Beijing Workers' Gymnasium.

The slogan embodies the essence of the Olympic spirit and universal values – unity, friendship, progress, harmony, participation and dreams – and expresses the common aspiration of the whole world to pursue a better future for mankind under the inspiration of the Olympic spirit.

It reflects the core concept of the Beijing Olympic Games and embodies the harmonious values contained in the humanistic Olympics, which is the core soul of the three major concepts of "Green Olympics, Science and Technology Olympics and Humanistic Olympics".

It also expresses the lofty ideal that the people of Beijing and the Chinese people share a beautiful homeland with the people of all countries in the world, share the fruits of civilization, and work together to create a better future. It expresses the firm belief that a great nation with a 5,000-year-old civilization and is striding towards modernization is committed to peaceful development, social harmony and people's happiness; It expresses the aspirations of the 1.3 billion Chinese people to contribute to building a peaceful and better world.

The first reason:

The Olympic Games originated in Greece, and the cycle of the Olympic Games originated from the worship of Venus by the Greeks.

Venus has an orbital period of 8 years, and it is amazing that Venus's trajectory in the sky is a regular pentagon, which means that Venus draws a regular pentagon in the sky every 8 years. The Greeks were so impressed by this law that they set the Olympic cycle at eight years. The modern Olympic Games are held in half a cycle of the Venus movement.

The second reason:

It is a legacy of the ancient Olympic Games. In ancient times, the Olympic Games were not just sports competitions, but they contained a strong spiritual pursuit, which eventually formed a kind of "Olympic spirit", so the Olympic Games were regarded as a celebration of the whole of Greece. According to the rules of the time, the Olympic Games were held every four years, and this cycle was later called "Olympiad".

In ancient times, the Olympic Games were held in leap years, and the modern Olympic Games have followed the old system and always followed the principle of Olympiades, even if the Olympic Games could not be held on time due to war, they were still counted as one in a leap year. This was the case in 1940 and 1944 during the Second World War. After the end of World War II, the Games were postponed until 1948 for the 14th edition, also because it was a leap year.

However, the designation of this cycle does not apply to the Winter Olympics, which are counted on the basis of the actual number of times they are held.