The opening Ceremony

This post speaks about the opening ceremony, the order of entry of countries, among other curiosities.

*"The opening ceremony was held at the Beijing National Stadium. It began at 8:00 pm China Standard Time on August 8, 2008(close to 08:08:08 pm).

*The entry parade of the competing athletes differed in order from previous Olympic ceremonies, as the national teams did not enter in order by the host nation's alphabet. Since Chinese does not have an alphabet, teams entered the stadium in order (lowest first) of the number of strokes in their Simplified Chinese character transcriptions; this is a common collation method for the Chinese language, such as the surname stroke order system. As a result, Australia (normally one of the first teams to enter the stadium) became one of the final teams to arrive, as the first character of the Chinese name of Australia has 16 strokes.
Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Summer_Olympics#Opening_ceremony

"Athletes of Greece, the country in which Olympics originated, entered the stadium first followed by all countries participating in the Games. China, the host country, was the the last to enter the stadium. "

Source : http://www.mapsofworld.com/olympic-trivia/olympic-opening-ceremony-protocol.html