2008 Summer Olympics
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50 free 2008 Summer Olympics trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing produced one of the most argued-over medal counts in the history of the Games. One country won the most golds and another the most medals overall, so who 'won' depends on how you read the table. Many results have also changed since, as retested samples moved medals from one athlete to another. This quiz works through that table and the stories behind it: the nations at the top, the small countries that reached the podium for the first time, the swimmer and the sprinter who rewrote the record books, and the medals that were handed back or taken away. It also covers the ceremonies, the venues, the torch relay and the arguments that surrounded them. The questions suit anyone who watched in 2008 and wants to see what stuck, quiz hosts building an Olympic round, and teachers looking for a ready-made set. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still teaches you something.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which stone was set into the back of every medal at the 2008 Olympics, a first for the Summer Games?
Jade
Jade formed a ring around the Games logo on the reverse of each medal. No Summer Olympic host before had added a material other than metal, though three Winter hosts had.
Q 02What did Cuban taekwondo fighter Ángel Matos do after being disqualified at the 2008 Olympics, earning a life ban?
Kicked the referee
Matos kicked the referee in the face after overrunning a one-minute injury time-out in his bronze-medal match. His coach was banned for life with him.
Q 03What was later revealed about nine-year-old Lin Miaoke's song at the 2008 Olympic opening ceremony?
Another girl sang it
Another girl sang it: Lin Miaoke mimed to a recording by Yang Peiyi, who stayed out of sight. The ceremony's music director admitted the switch a few days later.
Q 04Usain Bolt won the 2008 Olympic 100 metres in a world-record 9.69 seconds despite doing what before the finish?
Celebrating early
Celebrating early, Bolt spread his arms and slapped his chest with the race already won. A year later he ran through the line in Berlin and cut the record to 9.58.
Q 05How many gold medals did swimmer Michael Phelps win at the 2008 Olympics, a record for a single Games?
Eight
Eight golds from as many events put Phelps ahead of every athlete at any one Olympics, and all but one came in world-record time. His career total reached 14, another record.
Q 06Which country won the most gold medals at the 2008 Olympics, finishing top of the table for the first time?
China
China won 48 golds on home soil to the Americans' 36. It had 51 on the day, before doping retests took three away, and the United States still won more medals overall, 112 to 100.
Q 07Which footballer kicked a ball into the crowd during London's handover segment of the 2008 Olympic closing ceremony?
David Beckham
David Beckham appeared with Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page and singer Leona Lewis as a double-decker bus circled the stadium to hand the Games on to London.
Q 08What did wrestler Ara Abrahamian do with his 2008 Olympic bronze medal, protesting a semi-final ruling?
Left it on the mat
He left it on the mat in the middle of the ceremony and walked out. The IOC then took the bronze away altogether, ruling that he had violated the spirit of fair play.
Q 09Which NBA star carried the host nation's flag at the 2008 Olympic opening ceremony beside a young earthquake survivor?
Yao Ming
Yao Ming walked in with Lin Hao, a nine-year-old who had rescued two schoolmates from the Sichuan earthquake three months earlier.
Q 10The 2008 Olympic torch relay took a flame to the top of which mountain, closed to other climbers for the occasion?
Mount Everest
Mount Everest was summited on 8 May by a second flame, which later rejoined the main relay on its way to the opening ceremony.
Q 11Which country finished fourth in the 2008 Olympic medal table with 19 golds, its most at any Games in a century?
Great Britain
Great Britain had not won so many since it hosted the Games in 1908, and its cyclists alone brought home 14 medals.
Q 12Which country's women swept the medals in the 2008 Olympic 100 metres, a day after its men's sprint triumph?
Jamaica
Jamaica's Shelly-Ann Fraser won, and two teammates could not be separated behind her, so the race ended with two silver medals and no bronze.
Q 13Shooter Abhinav Bindra's air rifle win at the 2008 Olympics was the first individual gold medal for which country?
India
India's best individual results until then had been silver medals, the first two won by the sprinter Norman Pritchard in Paris back in 1900.
Q 21Michael Phelps won which 100 metres final at the 2008 Olympics by a single hundredth of a second?
Butterfly
Butterfly was the stroke, and Serbia's Milorad Čavić the man out-touched. Serbia filed a protest, but officials reviewed the video and upheld the result.
Q 22Which American swimmer overhauled France's Alain Bernard on the final leg of the 2008 Olympic 4x100 m freestyle relay?
Jason Lezak
Jason Lezak's closing 46.06 was the fastest split the event had ever seen, and it kept alive Michael Phelps's hopes of a record gold haul.
Q 23What went wrong for Michael Phelps midway through one 2008 Olympic final, which he still won in world-record time?
His goggles filled with water
Q 14Judoka Naidangiin Tüvshinbayar won the first ever Olympic gold for which landlocked Asian country at the 2008 Games?
Mongolia
Mongolia had held the record for the most Olympic medals without a gold. A boxer, Enkhbatyn Badar-Uugan, won its second later in the same Games.
Q 15Taekwondo fighter Rohullah Nikpai won bronze at the 2008 Olympics, the first Olympic medal ever for which country?
Afghanistan
Afghanistan's president phoned Nikpai at once to congratulate him, then rewarded him with a house and a car at the government's expense.
Q 16French-born slalom kayaker Benjamin Boukpeti won the first Olympic medal for which West African country in 2008?
Togo
Togo was his father's homeland, and Boukpeti chose to race for it while his elder brother paddled for the French flatwater team.
Q 17Which island nation won men's handball silver at the 2008 Olympics, its first ever medal in a team sport?
Iceland
Iceland lost the final to France, but the silver was only the fourth Olympic medal of any kind in the country's history.
Q 18Swimmer Kirsty Coventry won every one of which African country's four medals at the 2008 Olympics?
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe's Coventry kept her 200 m backstroke title and added three silvers. In 2025 she became the first woman to lead the International Olympic Committee.
Q 19In which sport did the host nation win every gold medal at the 2008 Olympics, two of them in new team events?
Table tennis
Table tennis was so one-sided, with the hosts also filling both singles podiums, that each country was cut to two singles players for 2012.
Q 20Michael Phelps's 2008 Olympic gold haul beat a single-Games record set in Munich in 1972 by which swimmer?
Mark Spitz
Mark Spitz won seven golds in Munich, every one of them in world-record time, and nobody matched his haul for 36 years.
His goggles filled with water, leaving him unable to see anything for the last 100 metres of the race. He still beat the field by almost seven-tenths of a second.
Q 24Which swimsuit, tested in NASA wind tunnels, was worn for 23 of the 25 swimming world records at the 2008 Olympics?
LZR Racer
The LZR Racer, made by Speedo, was also worn by 98% of the swimming medallists in Beijing. Full-body suits of its kind have since been banned from competition.
Q 25Usain Bolt's 19.30 seconds at the 2008 Olympics broke a 200 metres world record set in 1996 by which American?
Michael Johnson
Michael Johnson had predicted before the final that his 19.32 from the Atlanta Olympics would survive. Bolt beat it by two hundredths of a second.
Q 26Why did Usain Bolt lose his 2008 Olympic 4x100 metres relay gold nine years later?
A teammate failed a drug retest
A teammate failed a drug retest: Nesta Carter's stored sample was found to contain a banned stimulant, so in 2017 all four runners lost their golds.
Q 27What mishap put both United States 4x100 metres relay teams out of the 2008 Olympics before the finals?
Dropped batons
Dropped batons at the last handover ended both races: Tyson Gay never got hold of his in the men's heat, and the women's anchor exchange failed the same way.
Q 28Which defending 110 m hurdles champion, the home crowd's favourite, limped out of his heat at the 2008 Olympics?
Liu Xiang
Liu Xiang walked off with an inflamed Achilles tendon after another runner's false start, leaving the National Stadium crowd in stunned silence.
Q 29Which Russian pole vaulter cleared a world-record 5.05 metres to keep her Olympic title at the 2008 Games?
Yelena Isinbayeva
Yelena Isinbayeva had the gold won after only two vaults, then kept raising the bar until she had broken the world record for the 24th time.
Q 30Kenenisa Bekele and Tirunesh Dibaba each won both the 5,000 and 10,000 metres at the 2008 Olympics for which country?
Ethiopia
Ethiopia's Bekele set an Olympic record in each of his two races, and Dibaba matched his double in the women's events.