On the evening of August 8, the lighting of the Olympic cauldron in Beijing"s National Stadium marked the formal open-ing of the 29th Summer Olympic Games. From that moment on, the quest to jump higher, run faster and be stronger began as athletes in 28 sports and 38 disciplines vie for 302 gold med- als. Because of the addition of BMX bicycling to the Beijing Olympics" contest list, these Games have one more discipline and two more events (male and female BMX contests) and thus award more golds than previous Games.