INQUIRER Sports

BEIJING, China -- The Middle Kingdom, as China is also known, debuts on the international stage tonight, playing on the auspiciously lucky number 8, at 8:08:08 p.m. of the eighth day of the eighth month of the eighth year of the millennium, with the opening of the 29th Olympic Games at the Bird's Nest National Stadium.

International leaders -- including President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, United States President George W. Bush, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy -- will attend the opening of the Beijing 2008 Olympics.

Security is tight that even the advance team of the Philippine Presidential Security Group has not been allowed inside the stadium.

Haze and excitement envelope the city that has been refurbished for the flawless conduct of the quadrennial games. Exclusive passes to the opening are given only to those who have official invitations from the Chinese government.

Among them are Senator Gregorio Honasan and Congressman Monico Puentevella.

This year's Olympics, which has adopted the slogan "One World, One Dream" to symbolize peace, unity, and friendship, will have 15 Filipino athletes going for the first Philippine gold.

According to the briefer from Malacañang, Beijing, as host, adopted three concepts for the 2008 Olympic Games: "Green Olympics, High-Tech Olympics, and People´s Olympics."

This means that the games will focus not only on environment friendly technologies, infrastructures, but also on people.

The 91,000-capacity Bird's Nest National Stadium was built at the cost of $423 million. It's the venue for the opening and closing ceremonies as well as for the track and field events.

Designed by award-winning Swiss architectural firm Herzog & De Meuron, the stadium looks like a nest consisting of externally interwoven steel straps and bars like twigs with a bowl-shaped roof.