2008 Summer Paralympics

XIII Paralympic Games

"Sky, Earth, and Human Beings", emblem of the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games
Host city	Beijing, China
Motto	同一个世界 同一个梦想 (One World, One Dream)
Nations participating	146
Athletes participating	3,951
Events	472 in 20 sports
Opening ceremony	September 6
Closing ceremony	September 17
Officially opened by	President Hu Jintao
Paralympic torch	Hou Bin
Paralympic stadium	Beijing National Stadium
Summer:
<  Athens 2004 London 2012  >
Winter:
<  Turin 2006 Vancouver 2010  >

Iran v South Africa in wheelchair basketball at the 2008 Summer Paralympics.

The 2008 Summer Paralympic Games (Chinese: 第十三屆残疾人奥林匹克运动会), the thirteenth Paralympics, took place in Beijing, China from September 6 to 17, 2008. As with the 2008 Summer Olympics, equestrian events were held in Hong Kong and sailing events in Qingdao.

3,951 athletes from 146 countries took part.^[1] This was the largest ever number of nations at the Paralympics (ten more than in Athens), and five countries competed for the first time.^[2] China fielded more athletes than any other country. The slogan for the 2008 Paralympics was the same as the 2008 Summer Olympics, "One World, One Dream" (simplified Chinese: 同一个世界 同一个梦想; traditional Chinese: 同一個世界 同一個夢想 Pinyin Tóng yīge shìjìe tóng yīge mèngxiǎng, lit. "One World, One Dream"). China dominated the medal count finishing with 89 gold medals and 211 total medals, more than double the next-ranked NPC in both cases.

339 Paralympic records and 279 world records were broken.^[1]

International Paralympic Committee (IPC) President Philip Craven declared the Games "the greatest Paralympic Games ever."^[3]

Venues

Part of a series on

2008 Summer Paralympics Bid process Torch relay Mascot Opening ceremony (flag bearers) Medal table Closing ceremony Event calendar Chronological summary Olympics (medal table) IPC CPC SF&OCHK BOCOG

The Beijing National Stadium

Nineteen competition venues—seventeen in Beijing, one in Hong Kong, and one in Qingdao—were selected for the 2008 Summer Paralympics.^[4]

1. Beijing National Stadium (Birds Nest)
2. Beijing National Aquatics Center (Water Cube)
3. Beijing National Indoor Stadium (Fan)
4. Fencing Gymnasium of Olympic Green Convention Centre
5. Olympic Green Archery Field
6. Olympic Green Hockey Field
7. Olympic Green Tennis Centre (Flowers)
8. Peking University Gymnasium
9. Beihang University Gymnasium
10. China Agricultural University Gymnasium
11. Beijing Science and Technology University Gymnasium
12. Beijing Institute of Technology Gymnasium
13. Beijing Shooting Range Hall
14. Laoshan Mountain Bike Course
15. Workers Gymnasium
16. Shunyi Olympic Rowing-Canoeing Park
17. Triathlon Venue
18. Hong Kong Equestrian Venues
19. Qingdao International Sailing Centre

Symbols

Emblem

The emblem, "Sky, Earth, and Human Beings" (Chinese: 天、地、人), was a multicolored Chinese character "之" (Chinese: zhī) stylized as an athletic figure in motion. The red, blue, and green in the emblem represent sun, sky, and earth.^[5]

Slogan

The slogan was the same as the 2008 Summer Olympics, "One World, One Dream".

Fu Niu Lele, mascot of the 2008 Summer Paralympics

Mascots

The mascot was a cartoon cow named Fu Niu Lele (Chinese: 福牛乐乐), roughly meaning "Lucky Ox 'Happy'".^[6]

Theme song

The theme song was 'Flying with the Dream' Chinese: 和梦一起飞.^[7] It was performed by Chinese-Tibetan singer Han Hong and Hong Kong singer and actor Andy Lau.

Torch relay

The torch relay of the 2008 Summer Paralympics started from Tian Tan (Temple of Heaven) on August 28. The flame then gathered before The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests (祈年殿) and followed two routes (the "Route of Ancient China" and the "Route of Modern China"). Both routes returned to Beijing on September 5, and the torch was flamed at the National Stadium during the Opening Ceremony on September 6.

The Games

Opening ceremony

The opening ceremony took place on September 6, 2008. The pre-ceremony performance was a succession of various musical performances, ranging from military music to folk music and a performance of Ode to Joy.^[8] Following a countdown, a fireworks display signalled the beginning of the ceremony proper. The national flag of China was then raised, in accordance with usual protocol, and the national anthem of China performed.^[8] Performers wearing suits in bright colours paraded round the stadium, as a welcoming ceremony preceding the athletes' entry.^[8] As with the 2008 Summer Olympics, the ceremony included a parade of nations, with a flag bearer for each national team. Contrary to Olympic tradition, the national team of Greece did not enter first, as the Paralympic Games traces its roots to Stoke Mandeville rather than Olympia; the host country, as is customary in both Olympic and Paralympic Games, came last. As Chinese is written in characters and not letters, the order of the teams' entry was determined by the number of strokes in the first character of their respective countries' Simplified Chinese names.^[9] Countries with the same number of strokes in the first character are sorted by those of the next character. This made Guinea (几内亚) the first country to enter as it takes two strokes to write the first character in the country's name (几). Following the athletes' parade, a performance took place, divided into chapters and sub-chapters entitled the "Journey of Space" and "Journey of Life"^[8] The sunbird performance entailed Yang Haitao (杨海涛), a singer with a visual impairment, singing about dreams while an acrobat in sunbird costume descended in simulated flight from the air and "awakened the blind singer from his sleep".^[8] The ceremony concludes with Hou Bin, the high jump gold medalist with one leg lighting the flame cauldron.^[10]

Closing ceremony

The 2008 Summer Paralympics closing ceremony was held at the Beijing National Stadium. It began at 8:00 pm China Standard Time (UTC+8) on September 17, 2008.^[11]

Sports

Twenty sports were on the program:

Rowing made its first appearance in the Paralympics at these games.

Calendar

Participating NPCs

The following National Paralympic Committees sent delegations to compete.^[12] Macau and the Faroe Islands are members of the International Paralympic Committee, but not of the International Olympic Committee; hence they participate in the Paralympic Games but not in the Olympics.

Burundi, Gabon, Georgia, Haiti and Montenegro were participating in the Paralympics for the first time.^[1]

Botswana was due to take part, but its single athlete, defending Paralympic champion sprinter Tshotlego Morama, withdrew prior to the Games due to injury. The country's last-minute attempt to field other athletes in her place was rejected, as they did not meet the requirement of having participated in international events.^[13]

Medal count

The top ten ranked NPCs at these Games are listed below. (Host nation is highlighted.)

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	China	89	70	52	211
2	Great Britain	42	29	31	102
3	United States	36	35	28	99
4	Ukraine	24	18	32	74
5	Australia	23	29	27	79
6	South Africa	21	3	6	30
7	Canada	19	10	21	50
8	Russia	18	23	22	63
9	Brazil	16	14	17	47
10	Spain	15	21	22	58

Events highlights

International television

•  Australia - Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC)'s ABC Television provided coverage on ABC Australian National Television's ABN-2.
•  Brazil - SporTV2 and Terra Networks.
•  Canada - Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in English and Société Radio Canada (SRC) in French.
•  China - Chinese Central Television (CCTV) provided coverage on CCTV-1 (opening and closing ceremony), CCTV-5 and CCTV-7 as all direct live telecast transmission.
•  France - Eurosport
•  Japan - NHK's NHK General TV provided coverage on JOAK-1
•  Azerbaijan - AZTV
•  Norway - NRK
•  Sweden - Sveriges Television
•  Turkey - TRT
•  United States - Universal Sports, an online subsidiary of NBC Universal, provided live streaming of selected Paralympic Games events (free registration required).
•  United Kingdom - BBC provided extensive coverage on BBC Television's BBC One.

In France, following the Games, Philippe Juvin, national secretary of the governing Union for a Popular Movement, accused national public television network France Télévisions of having practiced "segregation" by providing live coverage of the Beijing Olympics but only ten-minute daily summaries of events, outside prime time, for the Beijing Paralympics. France Télévisions replied that it would take Juvin to court for slander.^[14][15]

While the Games were not broadcast live in the United States, NBC broadcast a documentary featuring highlights and athlete profiles on November 9, 2008, followed by a week-long series of coverage shown by Universal Sports beginning the day after.^[16]

See also

• 2007 Summer Special Olympics
• 2008 Summer Olympics
• 2009 Summer Deaflympics
• 2022 Winter Paralympics

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to 2008 Summer Paralympics.

• Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games Official Site
• International Paralympic Committee
• Paralympic Online Streaming Coverage

Paralympic Games
Charter Host cities IPC NPCs Medal tables Medalists Participating Nations Sports Symbols
Summer Games	Rome 1960 Tokyo 1964 Tel Aviv 1968 Heidelberg 1972 Toronto 1976 Arnhem 1980 New York/Stoke Mandeville 1984 Seoul 1988 Barcelona/Madrid 1992 Atlanta 1996 Sydney 2000 Athens 2004 Beijing 2008 London 2012 Rio de Janeiro 2016 Tokyo 2020 Paris 2024 Los Angeles 2028
Winter Games	Örnsköldsvik 1976 Geilo 1980 Innsbruck 1984 Innsbruck 1988 Tignes/Albertville 1992 Lillehammer 1994 Nagano 1998 Salt Lake City 2002 Turin 2006 Vancouver 2010 Sochi 2014 Pyeongchang 2018 Beijing 2022
Olympic Games Youth Olympic Games Ancient Olympic Games