The sacred flame of the Beijing Olympics arrived in this Turkish biggest city at 00:05 on Thursday (GMT 2105 on Wednesday) to start the second leg of an unprecedented global torch relay.

The Olympic flame, carried in a specially-designed lantern, was flied into Istanbul onboard a chartered plane from Kazakhstan's largest city Almaty, the first leg of the global relay.

The Beijing Organizing Committee of Olympic Games (BOCOG) executive vice president, Jiang Xiaoyu, carried the flame lantern and walked off the plane and made a spell of exhibition at the airport.

Upon arrival, the Olympic flame and the whole delegation were welcomed by a cheering crowd, among whom were vice governor of Istanbul province Ergun Gungor, senior official of the Turkish Olympic Committee Yalcin Aksoy and Chinese ambassador to Turkey Sun Guoxiang.