Richmond celebrates arrival of Olympic Flame

Tens of thousands of people gathered at Minoru Park to celebrate the arrival of the Winter Olympic Flame in Richmond, the neighbouring city of Vancouver, on Tuesday.

The crowds rejoiced and screamed when Rick Hansen, Richmond's final torchbearer, wheeled the Olympic torch into the celebration and lit the torch's travelling cauldron.

The Olympic Flame passed by the Richmond Olympic Oval, iconic venue for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games and home to 12 days of long-track speed skating competition, before arriving at the final stage of the journey, and came onto the Richmond O Zone main stage in the midst of a two-hour Torch Relay Community Celebration.

"This flame symbolizes a sense of hope and possibility for everyone," Hansen, a tireless community volunteer who lost the use of his legs when he was just a teenager and won a series of international wheelchair marathons.

"The athletes will be here coming from around the world. They have dreams of Olympic glory and personal bests, but each and everyone of you have goals and dreams as well," he said.

"It was the people who worked together that helped me come back again. It was the attitude that I learned in sport that made me realize that I didn't have to give up," he told media.

Addressing the grand gathering, Alice Wong, member of Parliament for Richmond, said, "I think the most important thing is that over a good number of days the torches traveled over 1,000 communities, and finally came to Rechmond."

"I think it the best way that we can unite, so we are pround of being Canadians. So I think that is the message the torches bring us, an united Canada," she said.

The Vancouver 2010 Olympic Torch Relay is scheduled to go through communities in Vancouver before the opening of the Winter Games on Feb. 12.

Source: Xinhua