2008 Summer Olympics Parade of Nations was part of the opening ceremony that originating with the 1896 Olympic Games. The national team from each nation participating in the Olympic Games paraded behind their national flag into the Olympic Stadium. The flag bearer was an athlete of each national delegation chosen, to represent the athletes, either by the National Olympic Committee or by the national team.
Announcers in the stadium read off the names of the marching nations in French, English, (the official languages of the Olympics) and Mandarin Chinese with music accompanying the athletes as they marched into the stadium.
Per tradition, Greece entered first as the spiritual home of the Olympic Games, and the host country, China, entered last. All nations in between marched in the order of the host country language,the Simplified Chinese.
As Chinese characters do not have an alphabetical order, the National Olympic Committees were sorted based on stroke count.[2] Specifically:
Characters with fewer strokes march earlier, so Australia (澳大利亚) marched before Zambia (赞比亚) because 澳 has 15 strokes and 赞 has 16 strokes.
If the initial characters have the same number of strokes, then the stroke orders of the two characters are grouped in the order 橫竖撇捺折 (horizontal/vertical/left falling/right falling/fold). For example, Yemen (也门) marched before Maldives (马尔代夫) because 也 has three strokes in the order ㇆丨㇟ (525), while 马 has three strokes in the order ㇕㇉㇐ (551).
Multiple Chinese sources reported that if the initial characters had the same number of strokes, the second characters would be used.[3][4] However, this is inaccurate as Chad (乍得, stroke count 5-11) marched before Ghana (加纳, stroke count 5-7) because 乍 (stroke order ㇒㇐丨㇐㇐ (31211)) is ordered in front of 加 (stroke order ㇆㇓丨㇕㇐ (53251)).
If the stroke order groups are still the same, the initial characters tie and the second characters of each nation are used.
Excluding identical characters, a tie only occurred once, with The Gambia (冈比亚) and Benin (贝宁). 冈 has four strokes in the order 丨㇆㇒㇏ (2534), and 贝 has four strokes in the order 丨㇕㇓㇏ (2534), so the second characters were used. 比 has 4 strokes and 宁 has 5 strokes, so The Gambia marched before Benin.
Note that this differs from GB stroke-based order, which also uses the 橫竖撇捺折 system. Under GB stroke-based order, the comparison between ㇆ and ㇕ would have been the tiebreaker, with ㇕ ordering before ㇆ due to having fewer turns. This would have caused 贝 to be ordered before 冈 instead of the two characters tying, and Benin would have marched before The Gambia.
If the second characters still have the same number of strokes, then the stroke order groups are used again. For example, Djibouti (吉布提) marched before Kyrgyzstan (吉尔吉斯斯坦) because 布 has five strokes in the order ㇐㇒丨㇆丨 (13252), while 尔 has five strokes in the order ㇒㇖㇚㇒㇔ (35234).
If the third characters still have the same number of strokes, the stroke order groups are not used and it skips to the fourth character. Excluding identical characters, this only occurred once: the US Virgin Islands (美属维尔京群岛) marched before American Samoa (美属萨摩亚), since 维 and 萨 both have 11 strokes, ㇜ (5) sorting behind ㇐ (1) is ignored, and 尔 (5 strokes) sorts in front of 摩 (15 strokes).
Two nations were ordered based on a different name:
Macedonia marched under its then-provisional designation "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" (前南斯拉夫马其顿共和国), but was sorted under "Macedonia" (马其顿Mǎqídùn).
The United Arab Emirates marched under its short name in Chinese (阿联酋Āliánqiú), but was sorted under its full name (阿拉伯联合酋长国Ālābó Liánhé Qiúzhǎngguó).
Three nations marched out of order:
During the 2000, 2004, and 2006 Olympics, South Korea (韩国) and North Korea (朝鲜民主主义人民共和国) had marched as one team under the Korean Unification Flag. However, during these 2008 Olympics, negotiations failed for political reasons. Despite this, by coincidence in Simplified Chinese, the sort order would have placed North Korea immediately after South Korea, since 韩 and 朝 both have 12 strokes starting with ㇐丨丨㇕ (1225) which no other 12-stroke country starts with. The organizing team left this as-is, but North Korea refused to march next to South Korea and successfully requested to be moved three teams later in the parade order.[5] South Korea marched under its short name "Korea" in all three parade languages.
Under the original sort order, Israel (以色列) (㇙㇔㇓㇏ (5434)) would have marched immediately after Palestine (巴勒斯坦) (㇕丨㇐㇟ (5215)), but instead marched 22 teams earlier, apparently under the fiction (丨㇔㇓㇏ (2434)) between Vanuatu (瓦努阿图) (㇐㇙㇈㇔ (1554)) and Japan (日本) (丨㇕㇐㇐ (2511)).
During the 2022 Winter Olympics in which Palestine did not compete, this did not occur and Israel marched afterPakistan (巴基斯坦), which starts with the same character as Palestine.
For unknown reasons, Tonga (汤加) marched afterAndorra (安道尔) and other nations beginning with 安, even though 汤 (㇔㇔㇀㇡㇒㇒ (441533)) sorts in front of 安 (㇔㇔㇖㇛㇒㇐ (445531)). By comparison, Zimbabwe (津巴布韦) marched in front of Tunisia (突尼斯) as expected, under the same circumstances (津 and 突 both have 9 strokes and begin with a comparison between ㇔㇔㇀ (441) and ㇔㇔㇖ (445)).
Multiple sources reported that Taiwan (Chinese Taipei) (中华台北) and the Central African Republic (中非) had switched places to prevent Taiwan from marching next to Hong Kong (中国香港),[6][7] but this is inaccurate as 非 (丨㇐㇐㇐丨㇐㇐㇐ (21112111)) is naturally ordered before 国 (丨㇕㇐㇐丨㇐㇔㇐ (25112141)). Taiwan had originally requested to march under 台Tái.[7][8]
Zaobao reported that a contingency plan had been set up so that if Central African Republic athletes did not arrive at the opening ceremony, a BOCOG volunteer would still hold the country's placard and march between Taiwan and Hong Kong.[7] However, this is not unusual (for example, the same occurred during the 2016 Summer Olympics parade when athletes from Eritrea did not arrive until after the opening ceremony).
Brunei was excluded from the Games by the IOC shortly before the Opening Ceremony as no athletes had been registered.[9] One of the published lists of flag bearers was later edited to note this.[10] Brunei athletes would have originally marched 36th between Uzbekistan and Barbados.
List
The following is a list of each country's flag bearer. The list is sorted by the sequence that each nation appeared in the parade of nations. The names are given in their official designations by the IOC, and the Chinese names follow their official designations by the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games.
This table is sortable by country name in English, country name in simplified Chinese, country name in pinyin, flag bearer name, and flag bearer sport.
