Impressive Stats

• During the course of the Games, athletes broke more than 40 world records and more than 130 Olympic records. Swimmer Janet Evans' world record in the women's 800 m (set in 1989) had lasted for almost 20 years when Great Britain's Rebecca Adlington shattered it in Beijing. Adlington bested Evans' record by more than two seconds.
  
  The oldest competitor in the Games was Japan's Hiroshi Hoketsu, a horse rider who participated in his third Olympics at the age of 67. The youngest competitor Antoinette Joyce Guedia, a swimmer from Cameroon, participated in the games at the age of 12.
  
  

Michael Phelps

• One of the biggest stories of the 2008 Olympics Games was swimmer Michael Phelps' incredible, record-setting haul of eight gold medals in a single Olympics. In fact, he completed all of his wins but one in world-record times. Fellow swimmer Mark Spitz, who won seven gold medals at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, held the records before Phelps broke them. Phelps swam five individual events and three team relays. In total (including qualifiers, semi-finals and finals), he swam 17 times over the course of nine days.
  
  

Usain Bolt

• The biggest star in Track & Field at the Beijing Games was Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt (dubbed "Lightning Bolt"), who scored a trio of gold medals (and set a trio of new world records).
  
  Bolt is the first man to sweep in the 100-mand 200-m races at the Olympics since Carl Lewis. He then helped the Jamaicans to a first-place victory in the 4-by-100-m team relay.
  
  Some people criticized Bolt after his 100-m victory for showboating when, during the final few meters, he was "looking around, raising his arms out and then pounding his chest," according to NBC Sports.
  
  

Other Notable Athletes

• U.S. swimmer Dara Torres grabbed a tremendous amount of attention when she won three silver medals at the age of 41.
  
  In the women's all-around competition, U.S. gymnasts Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson finished first and second, respectively. Liukin's victory is especially notable because her father Valeri Liukin won two gold medals at the 1988 Seoul Games, exactly 20 years earlier.
  
  For the first time in history, athletes from Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Mauritius and Togo had podium finishes. Mongolia, Bahrain and Panama saw athletes bring home their country's first Olympic gold ever.
  
  

Lasting Effect

• Going into the Games, China always had uneasy relations with much of the Western world, so the country wanted to share its culture and history as well as make a positive impression on the rest of the world.
  
  After 14,000 performers shared the 5,000 years plus history of China in one of the most elaborate Opening Ceremonies ever, most commentators seemed to agree that they succeeded. As Sport Illustrated's Alexander Wolff put it, "[The Chinese] yearned for the Games, banked on them, sacrificed for them, and in the end delivered on them."