Participating countries at 2008 Summer Olympics
Though the qualifying competitions for various sports are well underway, it cannot be certain which of the current 205 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) will participate in 2008. Most NOCs participate regularly, although various circumstances could cause a nation to be absent from the games, as was the case for six NOCs at the 2006 Winter Olympics. Nevertheless, placements in various qualifying events can help predict which nations and how many athletes will be at the games. Steven Roush, chief of sport performance for the United States Olympic Committee, expects that the United States will bring about 600 competitors to the games, their largest Olympic team thus far. Other delegations will be much smaller; Afghanistan, for example, will be represented by just four competitors.
South African swimmer Natalie du Toit, five time gold medalist at the Athens Paralympics in 2004, has qualified to compete at the Beijing Olympics, thus making history by becoming the first amputee to qualify for the Olympic Games since Olivér Halassy in 1936. Natalia Partyka (who was born without a right forearm) will compete in Table Tennis for Poland.
Below is a list of the all the participating NOCs (where available, the number of competitors per delegation is indicated in parentheses):
| Afghanistan (4) Albania (11) Algeria (8) American Samoa Andorra Angola (26) Antigua and Barbuda Argentina (138) Armenia (25) Aruba Australia (433) Austria (72) Azerbaijan (39) Bahamas (19) Bahrain (11) Bangladesh (5) Barbados Belarus (208) Belgium (94) Belize Benin (3) Bermuda (6) Bhutan (2) Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina (5) Botswana (2) Brazil (277) British Virgin Islands Brunei Bulgaria (72) Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia (6) Cameroon (3) Canada (331) Cape Verde (3) Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile (27) China (639) Chinese Taipei (80) Colombia (64) Comoros DR Congo (1) Congo Cook Islands Costa Rica (6) Côte d'Ivoire Croatia (106) Cuba (149) Cyprus (17) |
Czech Republic (130) Denmark (83) Djibouti (4) Dominica Dominican Republic (23) Ecuador (25) Egypt El Salvador (11) Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia (47) Ethiopia (36) Fiji Finland (55) France (217) FS Micronesia FYR Macedonia (7) Gabon Gambia (3) Georgia (35) Germany (439) Ghana Great Britain (313) Greece (159) Grenada (1) Guam Guatemala (12) Guinea Guinea-Bissau (3) Guyana (4) Haiti (1) Honduras Hong Kong, China (34) Hungary (171) Iceland India (57) Indonesia (24) Iran (55) Iraq (2) Ireland (54) Israel (43) Italy (344) Jamaica Japan Jordan (7) Kazakhstan (132) Kenya Kiribati South Korea (267) North Korea Kuwait Kyrgyzstan (21) Laos |
| Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein (2) Lithuania Luxembourg (12) Madagascar (4) Malawi (4) Malaysia Maldives Mali (12) Malta (6) Marshall Islands Mauritania Mauritius (3) Mexico (85) Moldova (31) Monaco Mongolia (29) Montenegro (17) Morocco Mozambique Myanmar (6) Namibia (9) Nauru (1) Nepal (7) Netherlands (245) Netherlands Antilles New Zealand (182) Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Norway (85) Oman Pakistan Palau Palestine (4) Panama Papua New Guinea (7) Paraguay Peru (12) Philippines (15) Poland (268) Portugal (78) Puerto Rico Qatar (22) Romania (104) |
Russia (467) Rwanda Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines São Tomé and Príncipe (3) Samoa San Marino Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia (92) Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore (25) Slovakia (57) Slovenia (62) Solomon Islands (3) Somalia (2) South Africa (136) Spain (287) Sri Lanka (8) Sudan Suriname Swaziland Sweden (97) Switzerland (84) Syria Tajikistan (13) Tanzania Thailand Timor-Leste (2) Togo (1) Tonga (3) Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia (32) Turkey (68) Turkmenistan Tuvalu (3) Uganda (11) Ukraine (54) United Arab Emirates United States (596) Uruguay (12) Uzbekistan (58) Vanuatu (3) Venezuela (109) Vietnam (21) Virgin Islands Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe (13) |
The Marshall Islands and Tuvalu gained National Olympic Committee status in 2006 and 2007 respectively, and are expected to participate in the Games.
The states of Serbia and Montenegro, which participated at the 2004 Games jointly as Serbia and Montenegro, will now compete separately. The Montenegrin Olympic Committee was accepted as a new National Olympic Committee in 2007. IOC has promised to recognise the newly independent Republic of Kosovo, but not in time for the nation to compete in the Olympics.
North Korea and South Korea held meetings to discuss the possibility of sending a united team to the 2008 Olympics, but the proposal failed, due to disagreements between the two NOCs on the proportion of athletes from the two countries within the team.
On July 24, 2008, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) banned Iraq from competing in the 2008 Olympic Summer Games due to "political interference by the government in sports." On July 29, the IOC reversed its decision and will allow the nation to compete after a pledge by Iraq to ensure "the independence of its national Olympics panel" by instituting fair elections before the end of November. Until then, Iraq's Olympic Organisation will be run by "an interim committee proposed by its national sports federations and approved by the IOC."
This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.
English
Română