Cao Guangjing, deputy general manager of the China Three Gorges Project Corporation, had powerful feelings when he carried the Olympic torch across the dam yesterday.
"I spent my entire youth here. Sometimes it's difficult to believe I've been here for 23 years," the 44-year-old hydrological engineer told China Daily.
Cao became involved in the project's feasibility studies upon graduating from college in 1985 and has since lived on the desolate banks of the Three Gorges in a Yichang suburb.
"Time flies. Today, I ran for one minute, and the relay on the dam lasted one hour. But this project has been ongoing for a century since the idea was first developed."
Yesterday, the Olympic flame traveled through the riverside city of Yichang, its second stop in Hubei province after it visited the provincial capital Wuhan.
It started on the Yangtze River's northern banks in the city and ended before the Three Gorges Dam.
The dam was finished in May 2006 after 12 years of construction. The whole Three Gorges Project is slated for completion next year.
"There were about 200 of us who came here in 1985. By the turn of the century, the company had 30,000 workers at the peak of construction, and by now, more than 100,000 people have been involved in the project at some point," Cao said.
Cao and four other engineers represented these workers when they took the flame yesterday.
Of the 208 torchbearers in Yichang, 131 ran across the dam and its surrounding area.
Zhang Shuguang, one of the four engineers-cum-torchbearers, has also worked on the project since 1985. After receiving the flame from Hong Kong pop singer Karen Mok, Zhang took the torch to the highest point of the 185-m-tall dam.
Farmer Li Fang from Yinxingtuo village, Zigui county, also carried the torch in Yichang.
Her family had relocated from what is now an underwater area of the Three Gorges Reservoir in October 1997, and she carried the flame on behalf of more than 1 million migrants relocated from now-submerged areas to all over the country.
Sichuan route
The relay's route through quake-ravaged Sichuan province might be shortened, as Olympic organizers are mulling over the possibility of scratching the severely devastated cities of Mianyang, Guanghan and Dujiangyan off the itinerary.
The Sichuan leg of the relay had been cut by a day and postponed to the week before the Games' opening ceremony to allow for relief work in the quake-hit province.
Sichuan torch relay chief Zhu Ling told Xinhua on Saturday that while the three devastated cities might be dropped, the relay would definitely tour Guang'an, Leshan, Zigong, Yibin and Chengdu between Aug 3 and 5.
The death toll of China's most deadly earthquake in more than three decades reached 68,977 by noon yesterday, with 368,545 injured and 18,830 missing. Continuous aftershocks still threaten lives in the region.
The torch relay was also suspended from May 19 to 21 for a period of national mourning for quake victims.
Xinhua contributed to the story
Source: China Daily
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