SHENZHEN: A crowd of 200,000 people, some wearing face paint and many others waving Chinese flags, greeted the Olympic flame as it raced through the boomtown of Shenzhen at its fastest clip since the Beijing Games torch relay got under way in Athens in March.

The relay was postponed from its scheduled 8 am start until the afternoon, to give torch climbers enough time to scale up and down Mount Qomolongma, an unprecedented feat in the annals of the Games.

Torchbearers in Shenzhen braced themselves for accelerated runs to compensate for the late start, completing the 41.6 km total run in a shortened six hours instead of 10.

Most runners posted sub-1 minute runs for their respective 200m sections of the Shenzhen leg, which inevitably generated mixed feelings among those who had been waiting months for the honor.

"I feel it's a pity that we had to run faster than expected, but I am really happy at our successful relay on the mountain," torchbearer Gao Zicheng said.

Wang Qihong, the final torchbearer of the relay, had planned to finish his stretch on an artificial limb but had to resort to using a wheelchair to reach and light the cauldron within the deadline.

The delay posed a bigger challenge for the escort runners, who each had to run alongside eight torchbearers and cover a distance of 1.6 km on a balmy, hot day in the southern region.

"I was a bit nervous when I first learned of the change in timing," said Xu Chengming, a senior high school student. "But it wasn't a problem since I have been exercising a lot recently. To be a qualified escort runner, we have to be able to clock 3,000 m in 20 minutes."

Xu himself covered 1.6 km in 8 minutes - a feat he attributed to the "enthusiastic" cheers from rapturous bystanders.

(China Daily 05/09/2008 page7)