The Beijing Olympic Games organizers announced on Friday that they will make some changes to the planned route of the torch relay after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) cancelled the Taipei stop.
Jiang Xiaoyu, executive vice president of the Beijing Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games (BOCOG), said the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee's refusal of the torch relay may force them to revise the planned route which has been approved by the IOC.
"The IOC has informed BOCOG that the Beijing Olympic torch relay will have to go ahead without the stop in Taipei. There are no possibilities of selecting a new city (to replace Taipei)," Jiang told reporters.
"We will make some adjustment in the schedule," he added.
According to the original plan, the Olympic flame will fly from Ho Chi Minh City to Taipei on April 30 and leave for Hong Kong on May 1 after the relay ends in Taipei.
"But now we have to change the original schedule. I think it is possible that the flame go directly from Ho Chi Minh City to Hong Kong on April 30th," he said.
Jiang said that on Thursday, Tsai Chen-wei from Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee said in a letter to BOCOG that the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee would not have further discussions with BOCOG on the issue of the Olympic torch relay passing through Chinese Taipei and thus "unilaterally" closed the door of the discussion.
"The responsibility that the torch relay can not go to Taipei completely lies with the Taiwan authorities," Jiang said, adding that the Taiwan authorities had violated the regulations of the Olympic Charter.
It's the first time for an Olympic committee to turn down the arrival of Olympic torch relay.
The BOCOG announced on April 26 that the 2008 Olympic torch relay will pass through 135 cities all over the world. The planned 137,000 kilometers route includes a stop at Taipei before the torch arrives in Hong Kong, Macao, and a score of Chinese mainland cities.
However, the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee later declared that they could not accept the planned route of the torch relay, claiming the plan "belittles" Taiwan.
Jiang said BOCOG had exchanged letters and held many meeting with the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee in a bid to solve the problem in vain.
Source: Xinhua
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