The Olympic flame arrived in Buenos Aires on Thursday for the seventh stop of its global journey.
The route in Buenos Aires is set to pass Women Bridge, Casa Posada, May Square, City Hall, Obelisk, Rose Garden and Equestrian Club, going through the Seven-Nine Street and Liberation Street. The destination is located outside of the River Plate Stadium. A rowing relay will be presented under the Women's Bridge.
High-profiled torchbearers are legendary soccer player Diego Maradona, Gabriel Batistuta, Anderes D'Alessandro. The last torchbearer is retired tennis player Gabriela Sabatini.
Maradona is a former Argentine football player. He played in four World Cups and received the FIFA Player of the Century award, after being voted in 2000 in an Internet poll on the organization's website to decide the best player of the 20th century.
Maradona won many trophies with Boca Juniors, FC Barcelona and SSC Napoli over the course of his career. During an international career that included 91 caps and 34 goals, he played in four FIFA World Cup tournaments, leading the Argentina national team to its victory over West Germany in 1986 World Cup, in which he collected the Golden Ball award as the tournament's best player.
Gabriel Omar Batistuta, nicknamed Batigol, is a former professional footballer. The prolific Argentine striker played most of his club football at Fiorentina in Italy, and he is the eighth top scorer of all time in the Italian Serie A league, with 184 goals in 318 matches between 1991 and 2003.
On the international level, he is the all-time highest scorer for Argentina's national team, with 56 goals in 78 national team matches, and he represented his country at three FIFA World Cups. In 2004, he was named in the FIFA 100 list of the "125 Greatest Living Footballers".
Gabriela Beatriz Sabatini is a former professional tennis player from Argentina. She was one of the leading players on the women's circuit in the late 1980s and early 1990s. She won the women's singles title at the US Open in 1990, the women's doubles title at Wimbledon in 1988, and a silver medal at the 1988 Olympic Games.
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southern shore of the Rio de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent.
Greater Buenos Aires, which includes the adjacent partidos or municipalities, constitutes the third largest conurbation in Latin America, with 13 million inhabitants.
(Xinhua News Agency April 11, 2008)