Olympics-Beijing torch begins COVID-shortened relay
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[February 02, 2022] By
Yew Lun Tian
BEIJING (Reuters) - Beijing's COVID-shortened
Olympic torch relay began on Wednesday with basketball great Yao
Ming and a Chinese soldier wounded in a bloody 2020 border clash
with India among the first to carry the symbolic flame on a journey
that will last only three days.
The route taking the flame to landmarks including the Great Wall is
far more modest than the globe-spanning tour ahead of Beijing's 2008
Summer Games that was disrupted by protests.
Because of COVID-19, only selected members of the public will
witness the relay, as will be the case during the Feb. 4-20 Games,
which take place inside a "closed loop" keeping competitors and
other Olympics personnel away from the public.
"That is, of course, bad luck but what can you do?", Georgios
Iliopoulos, Greece's ambassador to China and a torch-bearer, said
when asked if he was worried that the 2022 Games would be remembered
as the "corona Olympics".
"You cannot stop life and we do the best we can to continue with
what we have to deal with," he said before carrying the
red-and-silver spiral that resembles a fluttering ribbon.
COVID-19 and China's battle against it was reflected in Wednesday's
lineup, which included Pang Xinghuo, vice director at the Beijing
Center for Disease Prevention and Control and a regular at
coronavirus media briefings.
Movie director Zhang Yimou, who is reprising his 2008 role as
opening ceremony director, was torch-bearer number 134.
"I really hope Gu Ailing can win a medal," Zhang told Chinese media,
referring to the U.S. born freestyle skier also known as Eileen Gu,
who is competing for China.
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The Olympic flame is seen on a cauldron during the launching
ceremony at the Olympic Forest Park. REUTERS/Florence Lo
The flame will travel to competition zones before
ending its journey with the lighting of the Olympic cauldron at
Friday's opening ceremony.
Wednesday's event began when Chinese Vice Premier Han Zheng lit a
torch from a cauldron in the shape of traditional vessel known as a
zun, then handed it to 80-year-old Luo Zhihuan, who as a speed
skater was China's first winter sports world champion.
The first day ended at Big Air Shougang, a former steel mill that
was turned into an Olympic venue.
Among Wednesday's torch-bearers was Qi Fabao, a People's Liberation
Army regimental commander who was seriously wounded during a 2020
border clash with Indian troops that killed four Chinese soldiers.
Asked during the sub-freezing morning how he felt as an Olympics
torch-bearer, Yao, who played for the Houston Rockets, said: "Pretty
cold, because the previous two times were for the Summer Olympics.
But it's warm to hold a flame in the winter."
(Reporting by Yew Lun Tian, Norihiko Shirouzu, Jing Xu and Ryan Woo;
Writing by Tony Munroe; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Ed
Osmond)
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