China has announced that it wants the Olympic torch to be carried to the peak of Everest in a live broadcast to launch the 2008 Olympic Games.
Olympic organisers have apparently already got a research group working on the finer details of how the feat might be carried out, with the most challenging aspect being how to keep the flame alight on the way. China already has experience lighting a ceremonial flame atop the mountain for a national competition in 1999, but in keeping with Olympic tradition the question this time would be whether it would be possible to relay a lit torch up the mountain with specially-prepared climbers.
Ma Xinxiang, head of the China national mountaineering team, is decidedly upbeat on China's chances, “There is no doubt we can make it despite the difficulties. We haven't decided how to do it,” he said yesterday.
In '99 the torch was enclosed in a special oxygen tank with an igniter for when winds blew out the flame. For the Olympics the summit would be a stage point rather than a final destination, the flame would be carried up the south face of the mountain and then down the north face on its way to the Olympic stadium.
As plans go it's one that'll get plenty of attention, particularly if successful and would be quite an extraordinary twist on the usual proceedings. What might prove altogether more awkward is China's other plan to carry the flame through part of Taiwan...
Richard Nicholls
