Games torch relay hits Taipei snag
Organisers of the Beijing Olympics yesterday unveiled an ambitious route for a torch relay that would cross five continents and all of China in 130 days ahead of the Games' opening next August.
But a plan to send the torch to Taiwan was immediately rejected by Taipei.
At a ceremony at the Millennium Monument, Liu Qi , president of the Beijing Organising Committee for the Olympic Games, said the torch would be carried around the world in a 'journey of harmony' that would include Taiwan and Mount Everest in Tibet.
'It will be a relay that covers the longest distance, is most inclusive and involves the most people in modern Olympic history,' he said.
The route - unveiled by Politburo Standing Committee member Luo Gan and International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge after the IOC's executive board approved it yesterday - would see the torch travel 137,000km in 130 days, 97 of them in China.
The flame will be lit in Athens, host of the 2004 Games, and the relay will start in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
The torch will be carried through 18 countries - Europe, Africa, the Americas and Asia, including North Korea. From Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam it would go to Taipei, and from there to Hong Kong, Macau and 113 cities and regions on the mainland.
A senior IOC official said the route could change before the relay begins.
A second torch will be carried to Mount Everest, where a team will try to take it to the world's highest point.
The winning torch design, a red and silver tube 72cm tall and shaped like a Chinese scroll with a cloud design developed by a team at computer maker Lenovo, was also unveiled yesterday by State Councilor Chen Zhili and Hein Verbruggen, head of the IOC body that co-ordinates with the Beijing Games organisers.
Mr Rogge said the relay embodied the Olympic values of excellence, respect and friendship and the unique design of the torch would add a Chinese note to the Olympic flame.
Beijing sees the torch relay as the most important opportunity to promote China's international image ahead of the Olympics.
