Olympic Torch Relay rerouted
from MSNBC
“The last-minute changes were made amid security concerns following chaotic protests over the torch in Paris and London.
In San Francisco, as the heavily-guarded torchbearers made their way through the city’s streets on a chaotic journey, there was scuffling between police and protesters, but order was restored quickly.
Mayor Gavin Newsom told The Associated Press that the well choreographed fake-out was prompted by the size and behavior of the crowds amassing outside AT&T Park, site of the relay’s opening ceremony.
There was “a disproportionate concentration of people in and around the start of the relay,” he said in a phone interview, while traveling in a caravan that accompanied the torch.
Less than an hour before the relay began, officials cut the original six-mile route nearly in half.”
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Not a social commentary here, but The Daily Show, on Monday I think, had a great bit about the torch in France.
Rather than let the torch run through the streets of Paris, only to be extinguished by protesters, the French authorities, extinguished the torch and loaded the runner and torch into a van.
It’s not unusual for a torch to be extinguished during a relay, accidentally or intentionally.
There are actually three Olympic flames.
Two flames that travel the relay route; the torch that is carried by the runners and a lamp that stays in a trailing motor vehicle just in case a torch runs out of gas or is blown out by the wind.
The “Mother Flame” stays in a lamp at a undisclosed area, usually a heavily guarded hotel room.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/09/MNDS102IIM.DTL