Olympic Flame Arrive Kuala Lumpur

Finally, the Olympic flame had arrived KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport) from Bangkok in 20th.April early morning. The Beijing Olympic torch relay will be started today (21st.April) 2:00pm from Dataran Merdeka until KLCC. The flame will also be carried to the top of Kuala Lumpur Tower before ending at KLCC. The Kuala Lumpur leg would properly take about 4 hrs to complete and about 80 selected runners will be involved in this 16.5km run, after the launching ceremony in Dataran Merdeka. Meanwhile most of the major road entrance will be temporary blocked until the event is successfully completed.

This time, only 21 cities outside China were given the privilege to host a leg of the Olympic torch relay and it is only the second time Malaysians will get to witness the historic event up close.
Malaysia last hosted a leg of the torch relay in 1964 when Japan became the first Asian country to host the Olympics.

Since the pro-Tibetan independence activists had disrupted the run in London and Paris, security has become an issue at each leg of the torch relay. In fact, the relay route was also been modified in San Francisco because of security concerns. Thus, Malaysia would also pay extra attention on the security to ensure smoothness of the torch relay. About 1,000 policemen would be in the torch run group to ensure that nothing untoward happens during the relay. The Special Action Squad will form a cordon around the torchbearers throughout the route.