In August 2008, China saw its biggest, century-long dream come true. The collective efforts of many generations of Chinese people came true. Bejing hosted both the Winter and the Summer Olympic games.
It was the first world capital to have this honor.
Table of Contents
The Summer Olympics medal table of 2008
The XXIX Olympiad, officially known as the 2008 Summer Olympics, took place between 8 and 24 August 2008 in Bejing, People’s Republic of China. The international multi-sport event hosted 10,942 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees. They competed in 28 different sports.
The event broke the record with even 204 NOCs under the same roof. 87 of these committees and their athletes won the most gold medals and got to the podium finish. For Afghanistan, Mauritius, Tajikistan, and Togo, this was the first time.
This is what the Beijing Olympics medal table from 2008 looked like for each country:
This table was created with wpDataTables by importing an XLS file. Check out yourself how easy it is to create a table.
The Games hosted five new events;
- Swimming: Women’s and men’s 10K Open Water Swimming
- Athletics: Women’s Steeplechase
- Cycling: Men’s and Women’s BMX
- Fencing: Women’s Team Saber and Foil Competitions
- Team event for Table Tennis (instead of doubles)
The winners
American swimmer Michael Phelps won the most gold medals. With a total of even eight golds, Phelps was declared the best athlete and set the new record for most gold medals won in a single Olympics edition. Before it, this record was held by Mark Spitz with seven medals in 1972.
Michael Phelps won 14 gold medal standings in his career, which is also a record. With a total of 16 methods, he is the second-best-rated athlete of all time, following Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina with 18 medals.
| Athlete | Nation | Sport | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Michael Phelps |
 USA |
Swimming | 8 | 0 | 0 | 8 |
| Chris Hoy |
 Great Britain |
Cycling | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Zou Kai |
 China |
Gymnastics | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Stephanie Rice |
 Australia |
Swimming | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Libby Trickett |
Australia |
Swimming | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| Ryan Lochte |
USA |
Swimming | 2 | 0 | 2 | 4 |
| Nastia Liukin |
USA |
Gymnastics | 1 | 3 | 1 | 5 |
| Kirsty Coventry |
 Zimbabwe |
Swimming | 1 | 3 | 0 | 4 |
| Shawn Johnson |
USA |
Gymnastics | 1 | 3 | 0 | 4 |
| Natalie Coughlin |
USA |
Swimming | 1 | 2 | 3 | 6 |
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Phelps’s success is, without doubt, one of the most important Olympiad accomplishments. Yet, other athletes had their shiny moments too.
Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt secured the spotlight quite dramatically. He won the gold medals in the 100-meter and 200-meter sprints, and an additional gold as part of the country’s 4 x 100-meter relay team. The number of total medals is lower compared to other athletes, but Bolt set a new world record for each of these events.
The Bejing Olympiad will be remembered for other events as well. Abhinav Bindra won the first gold medal for his country India, as he won the men’s 10-meter air rifle. Mongolia also had the honor of winning their first medal ever. The culprit was Tuvshinbayar Naidan, and the event was men’s 100-kg judo.
A not that pleasant event that marked the 2008 Olympics is the dopping violations. Even 50 medals were stripped because of this, 14 of those won by the Russian Olympic committee.
The Winter Games of 2022
The Winter Games of 2022 included 2,900 athletes competing in 109 different events. They took place for 19 days and introduced 7 more disciplines than the 2018 South Korea games. The International Olympic Committee states that 45% of the participating athletes were women. With this, the Beijing Games were the most gender-balanced Olympic competition ever.
All outdoor events and disciplines were organized with artificial snow, as the real one was not available.
There are many differences between the Winter and the Summer Olympic games. This is especially true when it comes to the winners and the medal ceremony.
In the Winter Games, Norway is the all-time best winner with the most medals (368) and most golds (132). In the Summer Games, however, Norway doesn’t even make it to the top 20 winners in the world.
These are the seven newly introduced disciplines:
- Big air freestyle skiing (men and women)
- Freestyle skiing: Mixed team aerials
- Short track speedskating: mixed term relay
- Ski jumping: mixed team
- Women’s bobsled
- Snowboard cross: mixed team
Winners and medal standings
Norway was the absolute leader of the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang in 2018. It repeated this success at the Winter Olympics in Bejing in 2022
The second on the list of most medals was Germany, followed by China which had its best results ever.
Representatives of the Russian Olympic Committee celebrated 32 medals. Six of them were gold, twelve were silver, and fourteen were bronze. This was the most successful appearance ever for the Russian Olympic Committee, taking also the Soviet times into account.
And yet, Russia was only ninth on the overall table. This was one of the rare occasions where Russia didn’t make it to the top 5, including 2010, 2018, and the current year.
China was not only an excellent host, but also an excellent participant: it won 9 gold medals, 4 silver medals, and 2 bronze medals. Before that, they had a personal best of 11 medals in 2006 and 2010.
The pleasant surprises
New Zealand got the first gold medal in Winter Olympics. The winner was Zoi Sadowski-Synnott, and the discipline was snowboard slopestyle.
A day later, Nico Porteous brought them the second gold in ski halfpipe.
Bart Swings ensured a similar success for his homeland Belgium. He won the first Belgian gold in more than 74 years, in speed skating.
Germany also had a great year – they rocked the luge and skeleton disciplines and won gold in all six of them.
Medals won per country
| wdt_ID | Country | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Norway | 16 | 8 | 13 | 37 |
| 2 | Germany | 12 | 10 | 5 | 27 |
| 3 | China | 9 | 4 | 2 | 15 |
| 4 | United States | 8 | 10 | 7 | 25 |
| 5 | Sweden | 8 | 5 | 5 | 18 |
| 6 | Netherlands | 8 | 5 | 4 | 17 |
| 7 | Austria | 7 | 7 | 4 | 18 |
| 8 | Switzerland | 7 | 2 | 5 | 14 |
| 9 | Russia | 6 | 12 | 14 | 32 |
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Country accomplishments per sport
15 of the disciplines present in Beijing were dominated by certain countries:
- The Netherlands excelled in speedskating
- France in biathlon
- Finland in cross country skiing
- Slovenia in ski jumping
- Switzerland in alpine skiing
- South Korea in short track.
These countries won 50%+ of the medals available in these disciplines. For instance, Quentin Fillon Maillet won even 36% of all medals won by France during the winter Olympics.
In this aspect, it is also important to mention Germany. The country noted huge success in luge, skeleton, and bobsleigh. It is here where the country won 16 of its total 27 medals (59%) and nine golds out of their 12 golds.
Medal bonuses
Ever wondered how much athletes earn for the medals? The rate depends on the medal and the country.
We’ve summarized the data for 12 countries, including the United States:
This table was created with wpDataTables by importing an XLS file. Check out yourself how easy it is to create a table.
The Athletes we will remember from Bejing
The 15th Bejing gold medal was brought to Norway by Johannes Thingnes Bo in the men’s mass-start biathlon. In total, he had four golds and one bronze, and these made him one of the most successful biathletes at the Olympics.
He was also only the second athlete to win even 4 medals during the Winter Games. The leader would be US speedskater Eric Heiden with his 5 golds during the 1980 Winter Olympics.
Bpo’s brother Trajei brought even more pride to the family by winning additional four medals in biathlon. The family shared 13th place on the medal table with South Korea. It even surpassed Finland and their famous cross-country skier Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo.
Further success for Norway was Marte Olsbu Roiseland’s three golds and two bronzes. Quentin Fillon Maillet won the same number of medals for France.
Russian athlete Alexander Bolshunov competed in five events and won a medal in each of them.
If you liked this article with the Beijing Olympics medal table, make sure to check out this one with the 1992 Olympics medal table and the all-time Olympic medal table.
