HONG KONG: More than 1 million residents and visitors ignored light showers on Friday to cheer the Olympic torch relay - many waving from apartment windows and rooftops of high-rise buildings.
Hong Kong is the first Chinese city to welcome the Olympic flame after its month-long odyssey spanning 19 cities throughout the world.
The number of spectators the relay attracted in the special administrative region was the highest among all cities on its overseas legs, Beijing Olympic Torch Relay spokesman Qu Yingpu said.
"It seems that everyone, either those on the streets or those looking out of their apartment windows, was holding a camera to take pictures of the sacred flame," he said.
It was the city's first Olympic torch relay since Tokyo 1964.
Hong Kong rider Cheng Man-kit rides with the Olympic torch at Sha Tin Racecourse in the special administrative region on Friday. AP
The eight-hour run included carrying the flame aboard a dragon boat across the Shing Mun River, and on horseback into the Hong Kong Olympic Equestrian Venue and Sha Tin Racecourse.
Hong Kong, a co-host city of the Beijing Games in August, will stage the equestrian events.
"Today, the Olympic torch relay resumes on Chinese soil after its global journey across five continents. It is a great and solemn honor for Hong Kong, Asia's world city, to be the first in China to welcome back the Olympic flame on behalf of our proud nation," Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang said at the launching ceremony.
"As a cosmopolitan city of China, Hong Kong is uniquely placed to play this bridging role between the people of the world and the people of our country," he said.
"This is one of the most important (IOC) events and I'm sure this is really a celebration for the opening of the Olympics," Timothy Fok, president of the Sport Federation and Olympic Committee of Hong Kong, and a torchbearer himself, said just hours before the run.
"We (Hong Kong and Beijing) are both Olympic cities; we share the same excitement and anticipation," Fok said.
One hundred and twenty torchbearers carried the torch on a 26-km route, passing such landmarks as Tsing Ma Bridge and the Avenue of Stars before it was ferried across Victoria Harbor to Hong Kong Island.
Among the torchbearers were athletes, celebrities, government officials, business tycoons, students and teachers.
Movie stars and pop singers, including Jacky Cheung Hok-yau, Andy Lau Tak-wah, Eason Chan Yik-shun and Kelly Chen, added to the glamor quotient
The relay started at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre where windsurfer and 1996 Atlanta Olympic gold medalist Lee Lai-shan, nicknamed San San, received the torch from the chief executive.
She said she was a bit nervous before the relay started. "It is one of my big moments and I am feeling the same excitement I did when I won the Olympic gold medal."
Asiad champion cyclist Wong Kam-po was the last to the carry the torch to Golden Bauhinia Square in Wan Chai, where he lit the cauldron, pulling down the curtain on a historic relay.
The Olympic convoy on Friday night left for Macao, the last of 21 cities outside the Chinese mainland, where a relay is scheduled for Saturday.
Source:China Daily
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