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BUENOS AIRES: The Olympic torch was run through Buenos Aires Friday
under tight security in a relay free of the scuffles that marred
earlier legs in Paris and London.
More than 2,500 police and other security
personnel lined the 13-kilometer (eight-mile) course through the
Argentine capital to keep at bay the few demonstrators denouncing
China’s crackdown in Tibet ahead of this summer’s Games in
Beijing.
Few incidents were seen or reported by the
police, the most serious being an attempt by two protesters to douse
the torch with water bombs. They were hustled away by police but
were let go after an identity check.
A champion Argentine wind-surfer, Carlos
Espinola, kicked off the run from the city’s port under cloudy
skies.
He was a last-minute replacement for soccer
legend Diego Maradona who failed to return in time from Mexico as
tentatively scheduled.
Thousands of people congregated in the central
Plaza de Mayo, in front of the government’s Rose House, to cheer
the torch, which at one point was also briefly put on a boat and
rowed along the city’s River Plate.
Former tennis champion Gabriela Sabatini closed
the three-hour run, carrying the torch into a horseracing club’s
grounds, where it was presented to Jiang Xiaoyu, executive vice
president of the Beijing Olympics organizing committee.
In Beijing, International Olympic Committee
(IOC) spokeswoman Giselle Davies said the body had received
assurances from the organizing committee that torch security was in
hand for its 135-city tour around the world.
The relay in Buenos Aires was the only Latin
American stop for the Olympic torch and the first time it had ever
been to Argentina.
After Argentina, the torch was scheduled to head
to Tanzania for the African leg of its relay on Sunday.
-- AFP
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