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BEIJING: The Olympic torch's passage next month through strife-torn Tibet will be cut from three days to one as part of route changes made necessary by China's earthquake, Beijing Games organisers said on Sunday.
"The change is due to the Sichuan earthquake's impact on the rest of the relay. Because of this, the sacred flame will only pass through (the Tibetan capital) Lhasa for one day," Li Lizhi, an information officer with the Beijing Olympics, told AFP.
The Olympic torch had been scheduled to transit a district south of Lhasa on June 19 before spending the following two days in the Tibetan capital, where fierce rioting against Chinese rule erupted in March.
However, the torch's Tibet leg will now be cut to a one-day passage through Lhasa, Li said.
"It will probably be in Lhasa on June 18 but we are waiting to confirm that," she said.
The adjustment is the latest after a three-day halt last week as China mourned the tens of thousands killed in the May 12 earthquake in Sichuan province.
The torch's worldwide relay is the longest and most ambitious in Olympic history and included a one-month world tour in April, followed by the current three-month domestic circuit that has included taking a torch to the summit of Mount Everest.
However, the relay has been dogged by controversy since the flame was first lit in Greece on March 24, and was repeatedly disrupted by groups trying to highlight grievances against China's rulers, including their rule of remote Tibet.
Tibet remains closed to foreign journalists amid a tight clampdown on the recent unrest, and the planned leg through the troubled region had looked set to generate more controversy for the torch.
Among the various adjustments already made to the torch route, Olympic organisers have pushed back its passage through quake-devastated areas of Sichuan province to August 3-5, making that the last stop before coming to Beijing for the August 8-24 Games.
The torch was in the eastern city of Suzhou on Sunday.
- AFP/so
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