Beijing torch relay should focus on China-IOC inspector

BEIJING, May 19 (Reuters) IOC inspector Hein Verbruggen believes Beijing organisers would be wasting a huge opportunity if the main emphasis of the 2008 Olympic torch relay was not on China.

The Beijing organisers are still putting the finishing touches to their plan, which is likely to include a trip to the top of Mount Everest, before it is handed to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for approval.

''They want to go abroad and we certainly will not stop them,'' Verbruggen told Reuters in the Chinese capital at the end of a three-day IOC inspection of preparations for the Games.

''However, I think it would be a tremendously missed opportunity if the emphasis of their torch relay was not on their own country.

''Given the fact that you're talking about 20 percent of the world's population. Given the fact that you have a vast country with enormous differences in scenery and many beautiful things to see.'' The relay of the ''flame of peace'' has become a carefully organised spectacle and before the last Summer Games in 2004 it visited 34 cities in 27 countries around the world before arriving in Athens.

''There is this little danger that organising committees, I'm not speaking about Beijing, always want to do a little bit more than the previous organising committee,'' Verbruggen said.

''Sydney (2000) took the torch to the islands of the South Sea, Athens was a special case and wanted to visit all the previous Olympic cities, and there is this tendency to try and better that.

''So we have said to all future organising committees, 'guys, it is not necessary to go abroad'.'' The Beijing Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG)'s original plan was to bring the torch from Athens to China overland along a ''New Silk Road'' but continuing instability in the Middle East may have forced a rethink.

''It's the IOC at the end of the day that takes the decision, but we leave the organising committee reasonably free to develop ideas and themes,'' Verbruggen added.

''Here they are developing this theme, I sincerely do hope that the emphasis is on their own country.'' Organisers have always hoped that Taiwan, which China considers a rebel province, will be included in the relay despite increasing tensions between Beijing and Taipei this year.

Taiwanese athletes compete separately under the Chinese Taipei banner at the Games but Verbruggen said the IOC would be quite happy if the relay visited the island.

''We don't have any problems with that, we imagine they are having discussions at sufficiently high levels and they will inform us of the results,'' he said.

BOCOG vice president Jiang Xiaoyu said on Thursday that the detailed plans for the relay would be made public in early 2007.

The Beijing Olympics will start on August 8, 2008.

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