Jiang Xiaoyu (C), the vice president of the Beijing Organizing Committee of Olympic Games (BOCOG), and Zhou Wenzhong (L), Chinese Ambassador to the United States, pose for photos together with the lantern which holds the Olympic flame in San Francisco, the United States, April 8, 2008. San Francisco is the sixth stop of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games torch relay outside the Chinese mainland. (Xinhua Photo)
The Olympic flame landed at San Francisco airport at 3:40 am in the morning for its sixth stopover of global journey on Tuesday. (Full coverage: Olympic flame torch relay)
The sacred flame just wrapped up its relay in Paris and set up for carrying through San Francisco, which has witnessed the coming of Olympic flame for four times before, namely the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Games, the 1996 Atlanta Summer Games, 1960 Winter Squaw Valley and 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games.
The route in San Francisco is set to pass AT&T Stadium, the home court for San Francisco baseball team of Giants, Bay Bridge, Ferry Building, Golden Gate Bridge, Palace of Fine Arts, China Town, Lombard Street and Civic center, Ciot Tower, Fishermen's Wharf, according to the released itinerary.
High-profiled torchbearers are Lang Ping, the U.S. women's volleyball team coach, who captained Chinese team to a couple of world champions, former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown and a retired firefighter Rick Doran, who is part of the crew going through the September 11 terrorist attacks.
(Xinhua News Agency April 9, 2008)