Chinese swimmer Lin Li waves the Olympic torch during the San Francisco leg of the relay yesterday.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP):
THE OLYMPIC torch was re-routed away from thousands of demonstrators and spectators who crowded the city's waterfront to witness the flame's symbolic journey to the Beijing Games yesterday.
The first torchbearer took the flame from a lantern brought to the stage and held it aloft, before running into a warehouse. A motorcycle escort departed, but the torchbearer was nowhere in sight.
Then officials drove the Olympic torch about a mile (11/2 kilometres) inland and handed it off to two runners away from protesters and media.
Less than an hour before the relay began, officials cut the original six-mile (10-kilometre) route nearly in half. The flame's only North American stop has drawn thousands of demonstrators gathered to praise and condemn China during the flame's journey to Beijing.
Chi Zhang, a software engineer from Sunnyvale, waited to see the torch from 10:00 a.m. He shook his head sadly four hours later when he heard the route had been changed.
"That's surprising," he said. "We were very excited about this. This was supposed to be the only stop in the United States. I took a day off work to be here."
Tension
There were signs of tension even before the torch relay began. Pro-Tibet and pro-China groups were given side-by-side permits to demonstrate and representatives from both sides spilled from their sanctioned sites across a major street and shouted at each other nose to nose, with no visible police presence to separate them.
"A lot of Tibetan people are getting killed," said Kunga Yeshi, 18, who had travelled here from Salt Lake City. "The Chinese said they'd change if they got the Olympics, but they still won't change."
Farther along the planned route, about 200 Chinese college students mobbed a car carrying two people waving Tibetan flags in front of the city's Pier 39 tourist destination. The students, who arrived by bus from the University of California, Davis, banged drums and chanted "Go Olympics" in Chinese.
Longest journey
"I'm proud to be Chinese and I'm outraged because there are so many people who are so ignorant they don't know Tibet is part of China," Yi Che said. "It was and is and will forever be part of China."
The torch's 85,000-mile (137,000-km), 20-nation global journey is the longest in Olympic history and is meant to build excitement for the Beijing Games. But, it has also been targeted by activists angered over China's human rights record
Hundreds of pro-China and pro-Tibet demonstrators blew whistles and waved flags as they faced off near the site of the relay's opening ceremony. Police struggled to keep the groups apart. At least one protester was detained, and officers blocked public access to bridge leading to the ceremony site across McCovey Cove from the ballpark.
Among the people selected to carry the torch were former Olympic beach volleyball gold medallist Kerri Walsh, 29; and swimmer Natalie Coughlin, who holds the world record for the 100m backstroke.
Zhou Wenzhon, 62, China's ambassador to the US, was also scheduled to participate.
One of the runners who planned to carry the torch dropped out this week because of safety concerns, officials said. The torch bearers will compete not only with people protesting China's grip on Tibet, but its support for the governments of Myanmar and Sudan.
Three blocks from the waterfront torch route, a few dozen activists with the Washington-based Save Darfur group, sought to get their message out. Among them were Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, of Ben & Jerry's ice cream fame, who stood near a van sporting a six-foot-tall stainless steel torch - complete with gas-fired flame - resembling the Olympic torch.
"We're asking China to extinguish the flames of genocide in Darfur," Cohen said. "China is the one country that has enough influence with Sudan to end the genocide. They really have no choice but to use that influence."
Local officials say they support the diversity of viewpoints, but have tightened security following chaotic protests during the torch's stops in London and Paris and a demonstration on Monday in which activists hung banners from the Golden Gate bridge.
Vans were deployed to haul away arrested protesters, and the FAA restricted flights over the city to media helicopters, medical emergency carriers and law enforcement aircraft. Law enforcement agencies erected metal barricades and readied running shoes, bicycles and motorcycles for officers preparing to shadow the runners.
The Olympic flame began its worldwide trek from Ancient Olympia in Greece to Beijing on March 24, and was the focus of protests right from the start.
San Francisco was chosen to host the relay in part because of its large Chinese-American population.
