Tibetans start torch relay to oppose Beijing Games

OLYMPIA, Greece (Reuters) - Tibetan activists staged a torch-lighting ceremony outside Olympia on Monday for the start of a global torch relay to protest against decades of Chinese rule over the Himalayan region.

Olympia, site of the ancient Olympic Games, will host the official torch-lighting ceremony for the Beijing Olympics on March 24.

"We lit this torch which is of so much importance for us, for a free Tibet," Tendon Dahortsang of the Tibetan Youth Association in Europe told Reuters.

The torch was lit outside the gates to the ancient site after the group of about 10 was barred from entering by police.

Tibetan shot-putter Tsultrim Gope was the first relay runner who took the lit torch after five women representing goddesses performed a traditional Tibetan ceremony.

"This is proof of the Chinese state's wide influence," Tendon Dahortsang said. "Greek authorities told us we were not allowed to go in because of our big bags, as Chinese embassy officials stood nearby and watched us."

The so-called Tibetan freedom torch will stop over at 50 cities and end at the border of Tibet on the day of the start of the Beijing Olympics, on August 8.

Olympia has hosted the Games' torch-lighting ceremony and relay since the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

"The police had a massive presence and they even escorted us back to our hotels but the people of Olympia clapped and cheered us on along the main street," Tibet Olympic Committee spokesman Kelsang Gope said.

China has controlled Tibet since People's Liberation Army troops marched in 1950 and considers it an integral part of its territory.

Critics accuse China of repressing Tibetans' religious aspirations, especially their veneration for the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.

China says it has spent billions of dollars developing the impoverished Himalayan region, and raised its living standards.

And it has repeatedly said that it wants to keep politics out of the August Games.

The International Olympic Committee has been under mounting pressure as criticism over China's human rights record grows less than six months before the Games.

The IOC has rejected a Tibetan request to field a team for next year's Beijing Olympics. The Tibetan team currently comprises some 30 athletes, all exiled.

(Writing by Karolos Grohmann in Athens; editing by Myra MacDonald)