2008 Summer Olympics summit of Mt. Everest
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The 2008 Summer Olympics summit of Mount Everest was the special route of the torch relay as part of the
2008 Summer Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and also known as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes from 204 Na ...
taking place in
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
. Torchbearers reached Mount Everest at 9.20 in the morning (local time) on May 8, in parallel with the Shenzhen
route Route or routes may refer to: * Route (gridiron football), a path run by a wide receiver * route (command), a program used to configure the routing table * Route, County Antrim, an area in Northern Ireland * ''The Route'', a 2013 Ugandan film * Ro ...
. Another name for the climb is the Beijing Olympics Torch Relay Qomolangma Leg.


Planning

The route taking the Olympic torch to the summit of the world's tallest peak was a side spur of the main relay, whilst the main relay continued elsewhere in China. It was the most technically challenging leg of the entire torch relay. Aside from the physical difficulty of scaling the mountain, the torch that was used for the climb had to be specially designed to burn in a frigid, windy, oxygen-thin environment.


Preparation

In April the Chinese government completed a
blacktop Asphalt concrete (commonly called asphalt, blacktop, or pavement in North America, and tarmac, bitumen macadam, or rolled asphalt in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland) is a composite material commonly used to surface roads, parkin ...
highway to the Mount Everest base camp to be used when the Olympic torch was taken to the peak. Workers spent 10 months widening, evening the surface of, and installing guardrails on the 67-mile road, the Xinhua News Agency said. "The upgraded highway ... will provide a safe path for drivers, tourists and mountaineers, and facilitate torchbearers (taking) the Olympic flame to the top of the world," the report said. Critics claim the highway, which begins in Tibet's
Xigaze Shigatse, officially known as Xigazê (; Nepali: ''सिगात्से''), is a prefecture-level city of the Tibet Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. Its area of jurisdiction, with an area of , corresponds to the histori ...
prefecture, will damage the
permafrost Permafrost is ground that continuously remains below 0 °C (32 °F) for two or more years, located on land or under the ocean. Most common in the Northern Hemisphere, around 15% of the Northern Hemisphere or 11% of the global surface ...
in the ecologically fragile area. But officials said they had conducted a thorough study of the effects on the permafrost, and that the 150 million yuan (US$21.5 million, €13.5 million) project did not damage the environment. The Chinese government said that the Everest event will be a show of international sportsmanship and
national pride Patriotism is the feeling of love, devotion, and sense of attachment to one's country. This attachment can be a combination of many different feelings, language relating to one's own homeland, including ethnic, cultural, political or histor ...
. "The torch relay to Mount Everest is a highlight of the whole relay, and it also represents the idea of green Olympics,
high-tech High technology (high tech), also known as advanced technology (advanced tech) or exotechnology, is technology that is at the cutting edge: the highest form of technology available. It can be defined as either the most complex or the newest te ...
Olympics and people's Olympics," Beijing Vice Mayor Liu Jingming said.


Resistance

The government of Nepal imposed a complete communication ban on
journalists A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...
and ordered
soldiers A soldier is a person who is a member of an army. A soldier can be a conscripted or volunteer enlisted person, a non-commissioned officer, or an officer. Etymology The word ''soldier'' derives from the Middle English word , from Old French ...
and police to set up
camps Camps may refer to: People *Ramón Camps (1927–1994), Argentine general *Gabriel Camps (1927–2002), French historian *Luís Espinal Camps (1932–1980), Spanish missionary to Bolivia *Victoria Camps (b. 1941), Spanish philosopher and professor ...
on Mount Everest with permission to use force against pro-Tibet demonstrators "to stop any anti-Chinese activities" during the torch's climb to the
summit A summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. The topography, topographic terms acme, apex, peak (mountain peak), and zenith are synonymous. The term (mountain top) is generally used ...
. "This could mean shooting if necessary," Home Ministry spokesman Mod Raj Dotel said.


Climb

On May 8, the Chinese Mountaineering Team successfully scaled the world's highest peak. A total of 36 torchbearers participated in the torch relay, 12 of them reaching the summit from the 8,300-meter base camp. The relay was televised live on CCTV state television, and globally. On the summit, banners of the Olympic slogans were unfurled, and the first and last two torch-bearers were female Tibetan mountaineers.Olympic flame lit at Everest peak
BBC. May 8, 2008.


Criticism

On March 13, China announced it would restrict world mountaineers from climbing Everest and
Cho Oyu __NOTOC__ Cho Oyu (Nepali: चोयु; ; ) is the sixth-highest mountain in the world at above sea level. Cho Oyu means "Turquoise Goddess" in Tibetan. The mountain is the westernmost major peak of the ''Khumbu'' sub-section of the Mahalangur ...
over concerns that Tibet activists may try to disrupt plans for the climb. John Ackerly, president of the Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet, criticized the climb as an attempt by the PRC to legitimize Chinese rule: "Beijing is using the Olympics torch ceremony, which should stand for human freedoms and dignity, to bolster its territorial claim over Tibet."China closes its side of Everest to climbers
, CNN


References

{{reflist, 2


External links


Torchrelay Beijing.cn (Photos)
Torch relay Olympic torch relays Mount Everest