May 07, 2008, 12:30
Chinese climbers carrying the Olympic torch were camped just over a kilometre (half a mile) from the summit of Mount Everest today and weather conditions look good for the final assault, officials said. Bad weather has denied mountaineers the chance to take the flame to the top of Everest for nearly a fortnight, depriving China of what it had hoped would be the defining moment of the torch relay ahead of the Beijing Games in August.
But calm, sunny weather over the last three days has buoyed the spirits of officials who sounded more optimistic than ever that the flame would be burning at the 8 848 m peak before the weekend. "I don't know exactly where the climbing torch bearers are," Zhang Zhijian, spokesperson for the climbing team, told a media briefing.
"But before I came here today I heard they had reached the camp at 7 790 m. Since the weather is very nice, I think we will have good news in the coming days." The Everest flame is separate from the main Olympic torch that arrived in mainland China on Sunday after a protest-marred international leg which embarrassed officials and sparked a wave of nationalistic fervour at home.
Organisers have kept plans for the Everest ascent a closely guarded secret for fear that it may also be blighted by protests by pro-Tibet activists. Both Nepal and China have sealed off the area.
Communist-ruled China has invested billions of dollars on staging the Olympics, eager to project the image of a modern and vibrant country.
All China waiting
The heavy snowfall last weekend was a setback for the project and destroyed at least some of the three camps climbers will be using from Advance Base Camp (ABC) at 6 500 m to the jumping off point for the summit at 8 300 m. The preparatory work, much of which had to be redone, would significantly cut the time it took for team members to get up and, just as importantly, down the mountain, Zhang said.
Zhang said the selection of the few members of the team who would summit the world's highest mountain with the flame was ongoing and that ethnicity and sex would be taken into account. Of the 31 climbers in the team, 22 are ethnic Tibetans, eight Han Chinese and one is from the Tujia minority, who live in a mountainous area in southwest China.
Three of the climbers are women, two Tibetan and one Han. Anti-Chinese demonstrations disrupted the international stretch of the longest torch relay in Olympic history after the March 14 riots in Lhasa sparked off unrest in Tibetan areas of western China. - Reuters
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