Greeks test Beijing torch lighting, fear Tibet protests

By Karolos Grohmann

ANCIENT OLYMPIA, Greece (Reuters) - Organizers of the Beijing 2008 Olympics torch lighting ceremony staged a dress rehearsal on Sunday, lighting the torch from a back-up flame as concerns over possible Tibet protests grew.

The ancient site in Olympia, which hosted the Games in antiquity, has been flooded by hundreds of media representatives and police ahead of the widely televised ceremony on Monday as Free Tibet activists vowed to stage a protest.

Beijing is hosting the Games in August and since last week, the region of Tibet and nearby areas have been convulsed by anti-Chinese protests and riots, with at least 18 dead in the regional capital Lhasa and four in nearby Sichuan province.

Exiled Tibetans say many more may have been killed. Tibet has been under iron Chinese rule since the 1950s invasion by the Chinese Army and the occupation of the territory.

In the dress rehearsal, the torch, carried by actress Maria Nafpliotou playing the high priestess, was lit in front of the Temple of Hera with a back-up flame from Saturday's rehearsal rather than the sun's rays using the parabolic mirror as the skies above Olympia stayed cloudy.

This was also the first time male actors, playing ancient Greek athletes, took part in the ceremony.

"The torch was lit like that because we had the flame from yesterday's rehearsal and we wanted to test some other things," Hellenic Olympic Committee spokesman Tasos Papachristou told Reuters.

Organizers, who expect a cloudy day on Monday as well, have brought the ceremony forward by an hour -- for the first time in decades -- hoping sun god Apollo will be kind at 5 a.m. EDT.

Apart from Athens 2004, no winter or summer Games ceremony has seen the torch lit by the sun's rays since 1996.

Following Monday's ceremony, a domestic torch relay will take place before the flame is handed over to the Chinese on March 30 for the international leg until the August 8 opening ceremony in Beijing.

TIGHT SECURITY

Hundreds of police and plain-clothes officers have secured the ancient site and the sleepy town in the western Peloponnese for fear of Tibetan protesters who some weeks ago lit their own "Freedom torch" in Olympia to campaign for a free Tibet, angering Beijing.

Several exiled Tibetans were coming to Olympia but said police were monitoring their movements.

"I am on my way to Olympia but I have four police officers following me so we do not yet know what we will do," one of the Tibetans told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

The government has said it will take all measures to protect the ceremony and its "international appeal".