At eight seconds past eight minutes past eight in the evening, central Chinese time, on the eighth of August, two thousand and eight, the Beijing Olympic Games get underway.
That’s 8:08:08 p.m. on 08/08/08 – so, by my count, only six eights. Two short of the lucky Chinese number. I can think of only one way this shortfall can be remedied: the Olympic committee gets Nena to sing an appropriately rewritten ‘88 Red Balloons’ during the opening ceremony. I’ve looked into it, and to my great disappointment they’ve gone with Celine Dion.
Ten and a half thousand athletes, competing in three hundred and two events, will descend upon the Chinese capital, each with dreams of gold and glory. Three hundred and thirteen of these will be from Great Britain. Statistically, this means we should get nine golds, all else being equal.
Of course, it doesn’t quite work that way, even though come September we might wish it did.
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