2010 Olympic Torch Relay Route: 45,000-kms starting at Victoria

[MistyMountainHop]

Originally Posted by mr.x2

^ right through the homeless and activist populations and the ghetto??

Whatever it takes to draw attention to the problem! (As long as we don't have Beijing-like stupidity).

[Kodii]

A good story Still waiting for my phone call. (PS: Wouldn't she be the second BC Olympic torchbearer, the first being that Britannia girl?)

EDIT: Nevermind, shes the first RBC BC torchbearer. The other girl was Coca-Cola?

Burnaby teacher named first B.C. Olympic torchbearer

By Bruce Constantineau, Vancouver Sun March 5, 2009

Shelley Deacon's training regime will soon consist of pushing a baby stroller around the block while holding a pretend Olympic torch.

RBC named the 28-year-old Burnaby teacher as its first B.C. torchbearer Thursday — one of 12,000 Canadians who will carry the torch on its 45,000-km, cross-country journey ending at the Olympic Games in Vancouver.

Deacon and her husband expect their first child this summer and she plans for their newborn to accompany her while she runs her 300-metre leg of the relay.

"We have the stroller already so I should start jogging with it around the block now to get ready," she said in an interview.

Olympic sponsors RBC and Coca-Cola control about 9,000 spots along the Olympic Torch Relay route. Coca-Cola has already announced its first B.C. torchbearer — 18-year-old Vancouver resident Patricia Moreno.

Deacon, who lives in Burnaby and teaches grade seven at Laura Secord Elementary in Vancouver, submitted her name to www.rbc.com/carrythetorch about two and a half months ago.

She pledged to keep coaching her school's grade seven girls basketball team, even while on maternity leave next year, and heard back from RBC officials about two months later.

They told her they were profiling certain people who made pledges so other potential applicants could see what kinds of pledges had been made. But in reality, they were interviewing her to see what kind of torchbearer she would be and they clearly liked what they heard.

Deacon received the good news last week during a surprise announcement over her school's intercom system.

"I'm really excited and quite honoured," she said. "We tried to get tickets to Olympic events but no such luck. So I thought what are the chances I'd actually get to carry the Olympic torch. Apparently they were quite good."

Deacon said she enjoys coaching basketball because it's a great way to get to know students outside the classroom atmosphere.

"It's important as a coach to let them know that even if you don't win, you still have to have fun," she said.

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© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Source: The Vancouver Sun -- http://www.vancouversun.com/Sports/Burna...t+Olympic+torchbearer/1357735/story.html

[mr.x]

IOC bans International Olympic Torch Relays

By LYNN ZINSER
Published: March 27, 2009

After a protest-marred torch relay preceding the Beijing Games last summer, the International Olympic Committee has decided to bar future organizing committees from taking the torch relay international.

The I.O.C. hopes to avoid the ugly scenes that erupted in San Francisco, Paris and London last year when anti-China protesters attempted to douse the Olympic flame, forcing the relay to be stopped and sometimes rerouted as the enterprise descended into chaos. The protests centered on China’s violent crackdown on dissenters in Tibet.

Beijing organizers had hoped to make the torch relay a celebratory part of its Olympic coming-out party. Making things worse, however, China staged part of the relay through Tibet, requiring a massive security presence amid the turmoil.

The ban begins officially for the 2014 winter Games in Sochi, Russia, but organizers of the 2010 Vancouver Games planned an all-Canada route and the 2012 London Games decided to keep the relay within Great Britain.

“Beijing had planned an international torch relay and we accepted it,” said Gilbert Felli, the I.O.C. executive director. “We saw in the debrief that the risk was there and the I.O.C. decided not to do it. I think when the torch relay is inside the host country there is more control.”