6B SPORTS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY APRIL 10, 2008
OLYMPICS
THURSDAY, APRIL 10, 2008
Demonstrators prompt torchbearer to reroute relay
BY JULIANA BARBASSA
ASSOCIATED PRESS
SAN FRANCISCO — The Olympic torch was rerouted away from thousands of demonstrators and spectators who crowded the city's waterfront Wednesday to witness the flame's symbolic journey to the Beijing Games.
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 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 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 since 10 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
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Olympic torch bearer Dean Karnazes, 44, of San Francisco participates in a media event on Tuesday in San Francisco. One unidentified runner who planned to carry the flame in San Francisco dropped out because of safety concerns.
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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.
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"A lot of Tibetan people are getting killed," said Kunga Yeshi, 18, who had traveled 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.
Jiang Xiaoyu, left, executive vice president of the Beijing organizing committee, and an unidentified handler, right, hold the Olympic flame, shortly after arriving at San Francisco International Airport, Tuesday. The Olympic Torch will make its only North American stop in San Francisco.
"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, 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 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 the bridge leading to the ceremony site across McCovey Cave from the ballpark.
The torchbearers 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-
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"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."
IOC president Jacques Rogge met with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Wednesday to discuss preparations for the games and "a range of games topics were discussed," the IOC said.
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 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.
San Francisco was chosen to host the relay in part because of its large Chinese-American population.
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other countries before arriving in China on May 4. The Olympics begin Aug. 8.
Rogge has refrained from criticizing China, saying he prefers to engage in "silent diplomacy" with the Chinese.
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.
In an interview broadcast Wednesday on the VRT television network in his native Belgium, Rogge warned that pushing China too hard on Tibet and human rights would be counterproductive.
Meanwhile Wednesday, the White House said anew that Bush would attend the Olympics, but left open the possibility that he would skip the opening ceremonies.
Rogge is to give more details at a news conference Friday, when the IOC's executive board is to discuss whether to end the remaining international legs of the relay after San Francisco because of widespread protest. The torch is scheduled to travel to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and then to a dozen
"If you know China, you know that mounting the barricades and using tough language will have the opposite effect," he said. "China will close itself off from the rest of the world, which, don't forget it, it
has done for some 2,000 years."
"I would again reiterate that the president has been very clear that he believes that the right thing for him to do is to continue to press the Chinese on a range of issues, from human rights and democracy, political speech freedoms and religious tolerance, and to do that publicly and privately, before, during and after the Olympics," she said.
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》OLYMPICS
BY BRYAN MITCHELL ASSOCIATED PRESS
World leaders to skip opening ceremonies
He became the second major world leader after German Chancellor Angela Merkel to decide to stay away from the opening ceremonies, although Brown's office insisted Wednesday that he was not boycoting the Olympics and would attend the closing ceremony.
LONDON — British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will skip the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said last month that he was debating not attending the opening ceremony.
Asked whether President Bush would go to the opening portion of the Olympics, White House press
secretary Dana Perino demurred, citing the fluid nature of a foreign trip
"It is extremely premature for me to say what the president's schedule is going to be" in August, she said.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and others have urged Bush to consider staying away from the opening ceremony as a way to underscore U.S. concerns about the recent unrest in Tibet and questions about China's relationship with Sudan.
Brown, too, has been under intense pressure from human rights campaigners to send a message to China. But his decision not to attend the opening ceremony is not an act of protest, a spokeswoman for his office said, speaking anonymously in line with government policy.
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