Olympic torch relay kicks off in Xining
24/6/2008 17:22
The Olympic torch relay kicked off in Xining, capital of northwest China's
Qinghai Province, this morning in showers.
Thousands of young students and
local residents gathered at the Central Square where the relay started up,
holding a forest of the five star red flags and flags printed with the Beijing
Olympics emblem.
It was still raining one hour before the scheduled starting
time. But people were still standing, waiting for the Flame and hailing "Go
Olympics, Go China".
The starting ceremony began at 8 a.m. around. The first
torchbearer, Wu Tianyi, an ethinc Tajik academician of China Academy of
Engineering, received the torch from Wang Jianjun, Party chief of Xining.
Wu
began to run at 8:13 a.m.amid cheers. The rain almost stopped at the same
time.
Wu has spent nearly thirty years on treating patients with plateau
disease and contributed to "zero death" of plateau disease and plague spot
during the construction of Qinghai-Tibet Railway.
"I am so proud to be the
first torchbearer. I will bring the Olympic Spirits to my work and contribute
more to curing plateau disease," he said right before the start-up.
Xining is
the last stop of the three-day Qinghai leg. A total of 291 torchbearers will run
a distance of 8.8 kilometers in the relay.
Xinhua
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