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SAN FRANCISCO - Thousands of people carrying Tibetan and Chinese flags packed the relay route of the Olympic torch Wednesday and police sought to keep demonstrators from disrupting the flame’s symbolic journey to the Beijing Games.Officials have decided that two runners now will share the torch, NBC News reported, and San Francisco police told spectators that the relay route will be several miles shorter than originally planned.The torch was lit at around 1:20 p.m. PT, and the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the first runner-buffered by Chinese and American police-headed away from the crowd and into a building on the waterfront. 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 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 six-mile 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.“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, prompting officials to warn they might make a last-minute change to the relay route.The route runs along San Francisco Bay from the city’s major league baseball stadium north to Fisherman’s Wharf.Outside AT&T Park, hundreds of pro-China and pro-Tibet 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 bridge leading to the ceremony site across McCovey Cove from the ballpark.About 80 people were expected to carry the torch on its six-mile route, including former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown.Ex-football star and former Olympic bobsledder Herschel Walker, 46, was selected to carry it as part of the six-member squad appointed by Samsung, one of three corporate sponsors of the relay. Former Olympic beach volleyball gold medalist Kerri Walsh, 29, was appointed by sponsor Lenovo, while the swimmer Natalie Coughlin, who holds the world record for the 100-meter backstroke, was chosen to represent the U.S. Olympic Committee.
Zhou Wenzhon, 62, China’s ambassador to the U.S. also was scheduled to participate.One of the runners who planned to carry the torch dropped out earlier 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 Monday in which activists hung banners from the Golden Gate bridge...
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