Olympic torch relay in Argentina passes off peacefully

BUENOS AIRES: The Olympic torch was run through Buenos Aires under tight security in a relay free of the scuffles that marred its early legs. More than 2,500 police and other security personnel lined the 13-kilometer course through the Argentine capital on Friday to keep at bay the few demonstrators denouncing China's crackdown in Tibet. Few incidents were seen or reported by the police, with the most serious being an attempt by two protesters who tried to douse the torch with water bombs. They were hustled away by police but let go after an identity check. A champion Argentine windsurfer, Carlos Espinola, kicked off the run from the city's port under cloudy skies. He was a last-minute replacement for soccer legend Diego Maradona who failed to return in time from Mexico as tentatively scheduled. Thousands of people congregated in the central Plaza de Mayo, in front of the government's Rose House, to cheer the torch, which at one point was also briefly put on a boat and rowed along the city's River Plate. Former tennis champion Gabriela Sabatini closed the three-hour run, carrying the torch into a horse-racing club's grounds in the city. There was no sign of major disruption to the symbol's passage, though just before the relay started, rival pro-Tibet and pro-China demonstrators faced off along the route in the center of Buenos Aires. Police separated the opposing groups, each numbering around 50, after the confrontations threatened to degenerate. Around a dozen Chinese residents sang China's national anthem and waved red Chinese flags. "They came up with the sole aim of trying to provoke us," a spokesman for the Free Tibet movement in Argentina, Jorge Anibal Carcavallo, told reporters.