Olympic torch evades protesters and supporters alike

By Jim Christie and Amanda Beck

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The Olympic torch's only stop in North America turned into a game of hide and seek on Wednesday as San Francisco abruptly changed the route, angering both China supporters and protesters.

Thousands of people converged along the announced scenic Embarcadero waterfront route. But after the opening ceremony, the first runner was flanked by blue-clad Chinese security officials and carried the torch into a warehouse. The torch eventually turned up miles away.

"We were cheated, because I think the meaning of the relay was to show the whole world that our country is hosting the Olympics," said Michael Huo, 30, a Chinese engineer working at a Silicon Valley start-up company.

The torch was a magnet last week for chaotic demonstrations in London and Paris China's human rights record and its recent crackdown on Tibet. Beijing, embarrassed as it prepares to host the Olympics, has strongly condemned the protests.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom told Reuters that the route had to be radically changed at the last minute or the event canceled to ensure public safety.

"We assessed the situation and felt that we could not secure the torch and protect the protesters and supporters to the degree that we wished," Newsom said by cell phone. "As a consequence we engaged in subsequent contingency planning that we felt would keep people safe."

The bewildering changes united supporters and protesters who had been divided by politics. Both sides were angered by the sudden changes to the only North American leg of the torch's journey to the Beijing Olympic Games in August.

"It's cowardly. If they can't run the torch through the city, it means that no one is supporting the games," said Matt Helmenstine, 30, a California high school teacher who carried a Tibetan flag.

CRUSHED OUR FREEDOM

After the torch initially disappeared from view, police boats and jet skis hinted it might be headed up the waterfront by boat. But an hour after the scheduled start, the torch appeared on a less scenic north-south street more than two miles away.

A planned closing ceremony on the waterfront was scrapped and the torch brought to San Francisco International Airport, where few saw its farewell.

In Beijing, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told the International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogges that the Olympic torch is a "shining symbol of peace, friendship and progress," the People's Daily, the official newspaper of the ruling Communist Party reported.

A commentary in the overseas edition of the People's Daily condemned protesters disrupting the relay. "To judge from the utterly crude behavior of a few trouble-makers, they have nurtured no respect for others or respect for the democratic majority, and lack a basic respect for the law," said the front-page commentary.

The route for the torch relay on May 2 in Hong Kong, its first stop in China, will be cut short "to avoid embarrassing scenes," Hong Kong's South China Morning Post reported, quoting an unnamed government source.

San Francisco has a large Chinese-American population and many had waited proudly to see the torch relay. In front of the city's ferry building, Christine Lias, 30, was quickly surrounded by more than 30 Chinese-Americans after she yelled: "Free Tibet now!"