Source:
https://scmp.com/article/636204/tibetans-will-help-carry-olympic-flame-expedition-scale-everest

Tibetans will help to carry the Olympic flame in expedition to scale Everest

Tibetan torch-bearers will be among the 50-member squad that will carry the Olympic flame to the top of Mount Everest, it was revealed yesterday.

Zhang Zhijian, spokesman of the Chinese mountaineering team, said the group, which featured Han Chinese, Tibetans and people of other ethnic groups, also comprised coaches, officials and other staff.

'It is a collective job. Nobody can do it alone,' Mr Zhang told China News Service. He said there would be women torch-bearers.

'We have got ready mountaineers, the torch development service, the weather forecast, the logistics service and the TV broadcast team,' he said at the Mount Everest media centre, 5,040 metres above sea level.

The attempt to bring a separate torch to the 8,850-metre peak on the Tibet-Nepal border, has been mired in controversy. Criticism abounds that the Beijing Olympic organisers have tried to shut the door on most of the foreign media's coverage of the event following the Tibetan unrest in mid-March.

The first attempt to bring an Olympic torch to Mount Everest has also attracted much attention given the technical difficulties involved, especially involving attitude sickness.

Several journalists preparing for the ascent have already suffered altitude sickness.

The names of the torch-bearers and the date of the ascent had yet to be determined as it hinged on the team's physical condition and the weather.

The torch to be used is not the same one that has been travelling around the world, but a replica specifically designed for the Everest expedition.

Bocog officials have kept the date of the ascent under wraps although a source with one of the relay's sponsors revealed that the flame's journey up the world's tallest mountain could take place as early as Monday. 'The proposed date is on May 5,' the source said.

'But we were also told the schedule is open to change according to the weather conditions.'

The torch will be passing through three cities in Hainan - Wuzhishan, Wanning and Qionghai - on Monday.

A Hainan government official confirmed that the island's relay organisers rehearsed a suspension of the relay to give way for the Everest operation in their test runs of the programme early last week.

'Bocog [Beijing Organising Committee for the Olympic Games] requires suspension of the conventional relay when the separate flame is carried atop Everest to signify the ascent is part of the entire relay, not only a standalone activity,' he said.

The torch is scheduled to leave Hainan after visiting the provincial capital Haikou on Tuesday for Guangdong.