BEIJING, 6 November 2004 — The official opening of the Beijing Olympics has been set for 8 p.m. on Aug. 8, 2008, giving a string of four lucky number eights, state media yesterday quoted city mayor Wang Qishan as saying.
Wang said a clash with two other major televised sports events, the US Open and Major League baseball, was the main reason behind the change from the expected opening day later in August 2008, the official Xinhua news agency said.
“This is the final date (for the opening of the Games),” a spokeswoman for the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games (BOCOG) said by telephone.
Eight is traditionally considered the luckiest number in Chinese culture, as the pronunciation and tone of eight (ba) is similar to that for prosperity (fa).
The change of the opening day means the games will begin in a period when midday temperatures in Beijing regularly exceed 30 degrees Celsius and humidity is often high. Beijing officials previously suggested that Olympic events might be scheduled for early morning or late afternoon to avoid the worst of the heat.
Wang said officials expected some 3 million foreigners to visit China during the games, including about 30,000 journalists and 20,000 members of national Olympic teams. Some 20,000 journalists had already applied to cover the Games, the agency quoted him as saying.
