Olympic Torch creates Stinging History

This is for the first time in the history of Olympic Games there have been so much controversies from the very beginning. It is a part of custom to receive the Olympic torch with glee and does take place on the eve of very Olympic but has never incurred such a widespread attention. The fiasco, that came to the fore regarding the Olympic torch especially in the French capital, proves that the coming days will witness lots of affrays, in greater numbers. Indeed, if everything had gone fine it would have been a good-natured celebration ahead of the sporting event of the year to be held in Beijing in August. On the contrary it resulted into a heavily policed pantomime as protestors interrupted the progress of the torch. The violent protests and the bid of the protesters to even snatch the torch forced the security officials to cut short the relay and also to extinguish the flame for several times. To ensure the security of the entire route there were repeated cancellations for stage after stage and the flame arrived at its final destination 30 minutes late.

From the very begging a tension was mounting in the entire scenario of possible skirmishes and that led the security agencies to adopt stringent measures for thwarting any such attempt. Within a short time from the commencement of the torch's journey the heavy presence of demonstrators protesting at China's security crackdown in Tibet became obvious. The ethnicity and culture of Tibet is lauded for its pacifism but here the gathering was in no mood to display the conventional stance. This became evident from the way they made several attempts to put out the flame, lay in the path of the runners to stop their progress, held banners aloft and jeered as the torch passed. The scene was just the opposite of the celebrations of four years ago when thousands lined the streets to give a round of applause to the torch's progress as hopes ran high with Paris still in the running to host the 2012 Games.