The Turkish Olympic Committee (TMOK) on Tuesday unveiled details about the upcoming Beijing Olympic torch relay in the Turkish largest city, including preparation work, itinerary and several torch bearers.
Yalcin Aksoy, a senior TMOK official who is in charge of Istanbul's torch relay, told a press conference that the sacred flame carried in a small lantern is expected to fly into Istanbul in the early hours on Thursday from Kazakhstan's biggest city Almaty, the first leg of the global torch relay.
According to Aksoy, the starting point of the 17.8-km relay in Istanbul will be the city's signature Sultan Ahmet Square, where TMOK President Togay Bayatli will light the torch and hand it over to the first torch bearer Tugba Karademir, a promising Turkish figure skater aged 23.
Then Karademir and following torch carriers will make their way northwards on the seaside road along the Bosporus Strait.
Following the seaside stretch, a passenger boat will carry the torch across the Bosporus Strait and reach the Asian part of this Turkish city. After this, torch bearers will run over the Bosporus Bridge, a famous suspension bridge spanning Asia and Europe.
After returning to the European part of Istanbul, the torch will head for the destination, Taksim Square, for the lighting of a ceremonial cauldron. At the end, celebrations and plays will be staged on the square. Then the Olympic flame will go to Russia's St. Petersburg.
A total of 78 Turkish athletes, artists and media people, along with two diplomats from the Chinese embassy in Turkey, will carry the Olympic torch through the city, said Aksoy.
He also said that 14 Turkish public departments and organizations have been making good preparations for this torch relay.
Aksoy added that Turkey's national TV broadcaster TRT will broadcast live some major parts of the torch relay and enable the Turkish people around the country to share the passion and joy of the torch relay.
Bayatli, for his part, told reporters that it is happy and proud as Istanbul is chosen as one of the 21 cities outside China's mainland to hold the Olympic torch relay. At the same time, "it is a great responsibility for us and Turkey to ensure a success of the relay," he said.
The president said he would ask all people in Turkey to come and watch the torch-relay ceremony and make themselves "a part of the relay."
The TMOK also introduced two of the 78 Turkish torch bearers at the press conference, namely Esat Yilmaer, a columnist for Turkey's mass-selling daily Freedom, and Halil Akkas, a 25-year-old Turkish middle distance runner.
Akkas said it is a great honor and pride for him, as an athlete, to be chosen as one of the torch bearers for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, which he himself will also compete for.
Akkas said he was very confident of accomplishing his stretch in the upcoming torch relay, expressing his best wish that the Beijing torch relay would be a complete success.
The 2008 Olympic flame was ignited on March 24 in Ancient Olympia of Greece and was handed over to Beijing on March 31 after a six-day relay in Greece.
The relay will cover 137,000 kilometers before the flame returns to Beijing and enters the National Stadium on Aug. 8 for the Olympics' opening ceremony.
(Xinhua News Agency April 2, 2008)