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The Olympic Torch was lit on Monday, March 31st, in the Chinese capital of Beijing. The flame was at first brought from the antic Olympia to the Panathinaikon Stadium in Athens. With the hope that the message of peace will be carried through the whole world the president of the Hellenic Olympic Committee, Minos Kyriakou, handed the flame over to the principal of the Chinese Olympic Committee, Liu Qi.

There were around 10.000 spectators at the ceremony. From Athens the flame was brought to Beijing on a special flight of the airline Air China. The plane had the inscription “Journey of Harmony” and the Chinese national colors red and yellow. The national TV and hundreds of school kids with Chinese and Olympic flags in their hands were waiting for the arrival.

Liu Qi carried the flame out of the plane in a little lantern and brought it to the red carpeted Gate of Heavenly Peace. There the head of state and party leader lighted the torch and handed it over to China’s most famous athlete, the hurdler Liu Xiang.

Due to worries about protest actions, as there had been at the lighting ceremony at the historical site of Olympia in Greece, the hour-long event was accompanied by severe security precautions. Several policemen were present in the area, even at the surrounding roofs. The traffic was temporary paralyzed, some underground stations were blocked and walkers and cyclists were kept away.

To avoid protest actions there was no information about the details of the ceremony until Sunday. Unfortunately the organizers couldn’t keep away all of the demonstrators but the actions of these were not shown in the TV, because the alleged ‘public viewing’ was actually broadcasted with a one-minute delay. At the Tiananmen Square were only the 5000 imitated spectators allowed, including 220 foreign journalists. Some of the originally invited journalists were due to security reasons disinvited.

Most of the European politicians stayed away from the ceremony. The Czech Foreign Minister Karl Schwarzenberg had demanded the boycott of the opening ceremony. The reasons for the absence of several politicians, if due to personal or political motives, are not known. The German chancellor Angela Merkel assured her absence had nothing to do with a boycott. She had decided to don’t travel to Beijing long time before the disputes with Tibet started.

The ceremony was accompanied by a spectacular program, such as circus acrobatics and folklore dances were also some Tibetans in their traditional costumes participated. China’s Vice President Xi Jinping declared satisfied that the centuries-old dream of the Chinese nation to host Olympic Games finally became true.

During the following 130 days the torch will make its journey across the world. Planned is a relay across 20 countries with a distance of more than 137.000 kilometers on five continents. This will be the longest torch relay in the Olympic history. Highlight of the relay will be the carrying of the flame to the world’s highest mountain, the Mount Everest. For this sensation there has been diverted already a part of a flame to bring it to the base camp of the for the Tibetans holy mountain. However; it is still not sure if this part of the route will be accomplished. The human rights group ‘Human Rights Watch’ demands the independent investigation of the disturbances before the torch may be carried through Tibet.

On Wednesday the torch was first carried to the Kazakh city Almaty and it is supposed to arrive to China again on May 4th 2008. Then it will be carried through more than 100 Chinese cities. At the same time the Dalai Lama sent another torch on its way, the ‘Flame of Independence’. The torch was lit in the Indian city Dharamsala where the exile of the spiritual and temporal leader of the Tibetan Buddhists is located.

Emeli Dean is a high-ranking writer on sports for the sports betting industry.

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