IOC to discuss scrapping torch relays for future Games
Posted: 08 April 2008 1443 hrs

	Photos  of
	Related News • Australia beefs up security for Olympic torch visit • Protests build in US ahead of Olympic torch arrival • Protests cut short Paris Olympic flame relay • Olympic chief calls for peace in Tibet • Police battle pro-Tibet protesters during London Olympic torch relay • China insists torch will go through Tibet • Torch Relay Interactive Flash Map Special Report • Torch Relay Interactive Flash Map

BEIJING: Olympic chiefs will this week discuss scrapping international torch relays for future Games, following protests that have disrupted the run-up to the Beijing event, officials said on Tuesday.

The International Olympic Committee executive board will review the future of international legs of the torch relays at its three-day meeting in Beijing that begins on Thursday, Kevan Gosper, a member of the board, told reporters.

Asked whether planning for future torch relays would come up, Gosper said: "I would expect that the executive committee will review that."

He said talks would focus on whether the relays should be limited to the country where the Olympics are to be held, rather than a journey around the world.

However, there was no suggestion that the IOC chiefs would discuss scrapping the current torch relay for the August Beijing Games.

"My belief is the torch relay will stay on course," Gosper said.

"There might be adjustments, but I think it would be wrong, actually, to try and do anything more than try to get the torch through to its ultimate destination."

The Beijing Olympic organisers also vowed on Tuesday that the torch relay would continue as planned.

On Monday, the Olympic flame relay was cut short in Paris due to constant disruptions by hundreds of campaigners protesting over China's controversial rule of Tibet and a range of other human rights issues.

Widespread protests also disrupted the previous day's leg in London, while activists have promised more of the same in San Francisco for the next leg on Wednesday.

Beijing Games organisers are trying to stage the most ambitious Olympic torch relay of all time, visiting 19 countries plus China during a 137,000-kilometre (85,000-mile) journey.

In China, the torch is scheduled to include controversial legs up Mount Everest, the world's highest peak, and through Tibet, where a month of unrest has been one of the main focus issues for relay protesters.

Gosper said that the IOC might now prefer a return to a more modest relay programme in which the torch was lit in Greece and then transferred to the host country, which then staged a purely domestic relay.

"I am a firm believer that we had the right template in the first place, that the torch should go from Olympia, Greece to the host country," he said.

Craig Reedie, the British IOC member, said London had yet to decide on a plan for the torch relay for its 2012 Olympic Games. But he said the chaos surrounding the Beijing torch relay would influence the decision.

"We have not made any decision about the relay," he said. "Now is probably not the best time to start planning it."

At the board meeting, Reedie said the IOC board would discuss the principles of international relay routes and would review the whole process for torch relays.

"Britain will wait to see what the IOC has to say about all this," he added.


- AFP/so