2008 Summer Olympics highlights

All you want to know about 2008 Summer Olympics highlights

For a medal count, see 2008 Summer Olympics medal table.

This page contains a chronological summary of major events from the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China.

Calendar

●	Opening ceremony		Event competitions	●	Event finals		Exhibition gala	●	Closing ceremony

August 2008	6th Wed	7th Thu	8th Fri	9th Sat	10th Sun	11th Mon	12th Tue	13th Wed	14th Thu	15th Fri	16th Sat	17th Sun	18th Mon	19th Tue	20th Wed	21st Thu	22nd Fri	23rd Sat	24th Sun	Gold medals
Archery					●	●			●	●										4
Athletics										● ●	● ● ● ●	● ● ● ● ● ●	● ● ● ● ● ●	● ● ● ● ●	● ● ●	● ● ● ● ● ●	● ● ● ● ● ● ●	● ● ● ● ● ● ●	●	47
Badminton										●	● ●	● ●								5
Baseball																		●		1
Basketball																		●	●	2
Boxing																		● ● ● ● ●	● ● ● ● ● ●	11
Canoeing							● ●			● ●							● ● ● ● ● ●	● ● ● ● ● ●		16
Cycling				●	●			● ●		●	● ● ●	●	● ●	● ● ●			● ●	● ●		18
Diving					●	●	●	●				●		●		●		●		8
Equestrian							● ●		●				●	●		●				6
Fencing				●	●	●	●	● ●	●	●	●	●								10
Field hockey																	●	●		2
Football (soccer)																●		●		2
Gymnastics							●	●	●	●		● ● ● ●	● ● ● ●	● ● ● ●				●	●	18
Handball																		●	●	2
Judo				● ●	● ●	● ●	● ●	● ●	● ●	● ●										14
Modern pentathlon																●	●			2
Rowing											● ● ● ● ● ● ●	● ● ● ● ● ● ●								14
Sailing												● ● ●	● ●	● ●	● ●	● ●				11
Shooting				● ●	● ●	● ●	● ●	●	● ●	●	● ●	●								15
Softball																●				1
Swimming					● ● ● ●	● ● ● ●	● ● ● ●	● ● ● ●	● ● ● ●	● ● ● ●	● ● ● ●	● ● ● ●			●	●				34
Synchronized swimming															●			●		2
Table tennis												●	●				●	●		4
Taekwondo															● ●	● ●	● ●	● ●		8
Tennis											●	● ● ●								4
Triathlon													●	●						2
Volleyball																●	●	●	●	4
Water polo																●			●	2
Weightlifting				●	● ●	● ●	● ●	● ●		● ●	●	●	●	●						15
Wrestling							● ●	● ●	● ● ●		● ●	● ●		● ●	● ●	● ● ●				18
Total gold medals				7	14	13	19	17	15	18	27	37	18	20	11	21	21	32	12	302
Cumulative Total				7	21	34	53	70	85	103	130	167	185	205	216	237	258	290	302
Ceremonies			●																●
August 2008	6th Wed	7th Thu	8th Fri	9th Sat	10th Sun	11th Mon	12th Tue	13th Wed	14th Thu	15th Fri	16th Sat	17th Sun	18th Mon	19th Tue	20th Wed	21st Thu	22nd Fri	23rd Sat	24th Sun	Gold medals

August 6

Football

The first competitions of the Games started at 5:00pm CST (UTC+8). The first events were women's football (soccer) matches. The day was devoted to women's football.^[1]^[2]

August 7

Football

The first football (soccer) matches for men began on this day. The day was devoted to men's football matches.^[3]^[4]

August 8

Fireworks during the opening ceremony

Wikinews has related news: 2008 Olympic Games officially open

Opening Ceremony: Starting at 8:00 PM CST (UTC+8),^[5] the four-hour opening ceremony was attended by 91,000 spectators,^[6] including more than 100 world leaders. The spectacle was directed by filmmaker Zhang Yimou, and the Olympic Cauldron was lit by former Chinese gymnast Li Ning.^[7]

Equestrian

The first events start in the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong, with eventing in equestrian sports.^[3]

Day 1: August 9

Wikinews has related news: Olympic highlights: August 9, 2008

Archery

South Korea sets an Olympic record in the ranking round of the women's team archery event.^[8]

Boxing

Samoa's Farani Tavui is taken to hospital after being knocked unconscious in the men's light heavyweight event.^[9]

Fencing

The United States sweeps the medals in the women's sabre event, the first U.S. podium sweep of a fencing event since 1904, as Mariel Zagunis takes gold.^[10]

Judo

Choi Min-ho of South Korea wins the Men's 60 kg ending all his matches with ippon.^[11]
Ryoko Tani of Japan who had never lost in a major international competition since 1996 was defeated in the Women's 48 kg semifinals by eventual gold medalist Alina Alexandra Dumitru with a controversial penalty point.

Shooting

Kateřina Emmons of the Czech Republic wins the first gold medal of the games, setting an Olympic record for both the qualifying (with a perfect 400) and final scores, in the women's 10 m air rifle.^[12]

Swimming

Swimmer Michael Phelps of the United States sets an world record in the first round of the men's 400 m individual medley.^[13]
Swimmer Alexander Dale Oen of Norway sets an Olympic record in the first round of the men's 100 m breaststroke.^[14]

Weightlifting

Chen Xiexia of China wins the women's 48 kg event in weightlifting, setting Olympic records in both the clean and jerk, and total weight lifted.^[15]

Gold Medalists
Sport	Event	Competitor(s)	NOC	Rec	Ref
Cycling	Men's road race	Samuel Sánchez	Spain		^[16]
Fencing	Women's sabre	Mariel Zagunis	United States		^[10]
Judo	Men's 60 kg	Choi Min-Ho	South Korea		^[11]
Judo	Women's 48 kg	Alina Alexandra Dumitru	Romania		^[11]
Shooting	Men's 10 m air pistol	Pang Wei	China		^[17]
Shooting	Women's 10 m air rifle	Kateřina Emmons	Czech Republic	OR	^[12]
Weightlifting	Women's 48 kg	Chen Xiexia	China	OR	^[15]

Day 2: August 10

Wikinews has related news: Olympic highlights: August 10, 2008

Archery

South Korea set a world record for a 24-arrow team match, in their victory over Italy in the quarter finals of the women's team archery event. They went on to win the Gold Medal, stretching the country's winning streak to 20 years over 6 Olympic games. ^[18]

Basketball

The USA men's basketball team beat hosts China 101–70 in the first, much-anticipated game in the basketball event. Yao Ming, the Chinese star player, scored the first shot of the tournament, but limped off at the end of the third quarter due to an ankle injury.^[19]

Shooting

Guo Wenjun of China wins gold in women's 10 metre air pistol and sets a new Olympic record for final score with 492.3 points, after Natalia Paderina of Russia had bettered the Olympic qualification record to 391.^[20] During the medal ceremony, Pederina and bronze medalist Nino Salukvadze of Georgia shared a symbolic embrace as their two countries continued to war; the two had been friends since they both competed for the Soviet Union.^[21]

Swimming

Michael Phelps wins the men's 400 m individual medley final, with a new world record, winning his seventh career Olympic gold medal.^[22]
Park Tae-Hwan wins the men's 400 m freestyle final. He is the first South Korean swimmer to win an Olympic gold medal for swimming.^[23]
Swimmer Alexander Dale Oen of Norway set an Olympic record in the semifinals of the men's 100 m breaststroke, his second in the event.^[24]
Australian swimmer Stephanie Rice sets a new world record in women's 400 m individual medley, winning Australia's 400th Summer Olympics medal. Second place Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe also finished below the previous world record.^[25]
The Netherlands team wins women's 4 x 100 m freestyle relay final with a new Olympic record of 3 minutes 33.76 seconds. Dara Torres of the United States, at 41 years of age, becomes the oldest swimmer to win an Olympic medal after the US team takes silver.^[26]
American men's 4 x 100 m freestyle relay breaks the World Record with a time of 3:12.23 in the preliminaries.^[27]

Weightlifting

Prapawadee Jaroenrattanatarakoon of Thailand wins gold in women's 53 kg weightlifting and sets a new Olympic record for clean and jerk. This is Thailand's first medal in the 2008 games.^[28]

Gold Medalists
Sport	Event	Competitor(s)	NOC	Rec	Ref
Archery	Women's team	Park Sung Hyun, Yun Ok-Hee, Joo Hyun-Jung	South Korea		^[29]
Cycling	Women's road race	Nicole Cooke	Great Britain		^[30]
Diving	Women's synchronised 3 m springboard	Guo Jingjing and Wu Minxia	China		^[31]
Fencing	Men's épée	Matteo Tagliariol	Italy		^[32]
Judo	Men's 66 kg	Masato Uchishiba	Japan		^[33]
Judo	Women's 52 kg	Xian Dongmei	China		^[33]
Shooting	Men's trap	David Kostelecký	Czech Republic	OR	^[34]
Shooting	Women's 10 m air pistol	Guo Wenjun	China	OR	^[20]
Swimming	Men's 400 m freestyle	Park Tae-Hwan	South Korea		^[23]
	Men's 400 m individual medley	Michael Phelps	United States	WR	^[22]
	Women's 4 x 100 m freestyle relay	Inge Dekker, Ranomi Kromowidjojo, Femke Heemskerk, Marleen Veldhuis Heats: Hinkelien Schreuder, Manon van Rooijen	Netherlands	OR	^[26]
	Women's 400 m individual medley	Stephanie Rice	Australia	WR	^[25]
Weightlifting	Men's 56 kg	Long Qingquan	China		^[35]
Weightlifting	Women's 53 kg	Prapawadee Jaroenrattanatarakoon	Thailand	OR	^[28]