The Olympic torch arrived in 2008 host city Beijing on Tuesday on the latest leg of its global tour leading up to the Athens Games, with a question mark over NBA star Yao Ming’s running of the final relay leg.
The Houston Rockets centre has been picked by Beijing organisers to carry the flame into the famous Summer Palace and ignite a ceremonial cauldron, but he was quoted as saying on Tuesday that he does not want to do it.
”I don’t have the right to be the last to carry the baton, this is not the right match,” the Eastern Sports Daily quoted Yao as saying.
”There are so many Olympic champions among the other torch carriers, they all have medals around their necks, some are even Olympic gold medals.
”The best result at the Olympic Games of the men’s basketball team is eighth place and that was eight years ago.”
He cited as an example Xu Haifeng (China’s first shooting gold medallist), Gao Min (diving gold) and Deng Yaping (table-tennis gold) as more suitable candidates.
”I am not the appropriate choice,” he said.
Jiang Xiaoyu, vice-president of the Beijing Organising Committee for the 2008 Olympics, had earlier said Yao would run the last section of the Beijing leg.
”We’ve decided to name Yao Ming, a very famous basketball player in China, as well as in the world, as the last torchbearer,” he said, but admitted it was not a foregone conclusion.
”It is only a tentative arrangement. We may modify the order accordingly in case of emergency,” he was cited as saying by the Xinhua news agency.
A small lantern carrying the flame arrived at the Beijing International airport aboard a Greek chartered jumbo jet — painted in Olympic colors and dubbed Zeus — for a two-day stay in the Chinese capital.
The lantern was officially received by Liu Jingmin, executive vice-president of the Beijing Organising Committee for the 2008 Olympics in a brief ceremony at the airport.
The flame was immediately taken to the Great Wall for promotional activities, accompanied by Australian 400m Olympic champion Cathy Freeman, the face of the 2000 Olympics and who carried the torch on its Sydney leg last week.
On Wednesday, it will embark on an eight-hour relay through the streets of Beijing with or without Yao.
A total of 148 torchbearers will take part in the 50km relay that will pass a host of symbolic sites such as the Temple of Heaven, the city’s hutongs and venues being built for the 2008 Games.
Yu Zaiqing, a member of the International Olympic Committee and vice-president of the Chinese Olympic committee, will run the first leg from the east gate of the Great Hall of the People.
Other participants include Olympic and world diving champion Tian Liang and triple world swimming champion Luo Xuejuan.
The flame began its journey in Ancient Olympia on March 25 when it was lit and taken to Athens’s marble stadium, where the first modern Olympics were held in 1896.
It started a 78 000km trek across six continents and 33 cities when it left Greece on June 2.
From China, the torch moves on to India and winds through Africa, the Americas and Europe before returning to Greece in the countdown to the lighting of the flame in the Olympic cauldron in Athens on August 13. — Sapa-AFP