The Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG) has released its newly designed set of icons to represent each sport. From the BOCOG press release:
Named “the beauty of seal characters” and with strokes of seal characters as their basic form, the Pictograms of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games integrate pictographic charm of inscriptions on bones and bronze objects in ancient China with simplified embodiment of modern graphics, making them recognizable, rememberable and easy to use.
See also Olympic pictograms unveiled – form and meaning are harmonious and united by Sohu (Chinese).