"I feel so good being the torchbearer. I know every climber wants to be a torchbearer," Gyigyi, a two-time Qomolangma climber, told CCTV ahead of the ascent.
A 19-member team, dressed in red parkas emblazoned with Olympic logos, broke camp at 8,300 m before dawn and reached the top of the 8,844-m mountain a little more than six hours later.
Chinese climbers hold the Olympic flag (L), the Chinese flag (C ) and the Beijing Olympics emblem at the peak of Mt. Qomolangma after the Olympic torch is lit at the peak of the mountain. The climbers carrying the Olympic torch stated to scale the peak at 3:00 am on Thursday morning and reached peak of 8848.43 meters around 9:17 am. [Xinhua] |
The ambitious project to take the torch to the Himalayan peak was cast as the highlight of the relay ahead of the Games, which starts in exactly three months.
"We have fulfilled a promise to the world and a dream of all the Chinese people," base camp commander Li Zhixin told reporters after being mobbed by jubilant friends and colleagues.
"The success belongs not only to the mountaineering team, but also to our country," said Hu Jiayan, deputy director of the General State Administration of Sports.
Li said the team had planned to carry the torch to the peak late last month.
"But strong winds and heavy snow delayed us again and again. This week we had the first window of good weather."
Vice-President Xi Jinping congratulated the climbers for their feat.
"This is one of the greatest events in the history of the Olympic Games and a precious gift by the Chinese to the Olympics and people worldwide," Xi said in a message to climbers.
The torch was designed by Chinese rocket scientists.
Fueled by propane, the flame burned brightly in the windy, oxygen-thin Himalayan air thanks to technology that keeps rocket motors burning in the upper reaches of the atmosphere.
"We installed a pressure-retaining valve in the torch, which enables the flame to withstand winds of up to 65 kph, nearly 6 cm of rain an hour, and temperatures of minus 40 C," Liu Xingzou, the chief engineer of the project, said earlier.
The flame was carried most of the way in a special metal canister. As the team neared the summit, they used a wand to pass the flame from the canister to the torch.
Beijing promised to take the torch to Mount Qomolangma in its bidding campaign. The organizers chose a team of 36 climbers consisting of both ethnic Tibetans and Han Chinese; and 19 were picked for the final ascent.
China Central Television began airing the ascent live at 6 am with the help of eight cameramen who used portable microwave transmitters to send signals to a satellite ground station at the base camp.
The flame that crested the peak was taken from the main Olympic torch when it arrived in Beijing in March.
The Beijing organizers put on hold the main torch relay in the southern city of Shenzhen on Thursday while the final push for the summit was taking place.
The Qomolangma flame will be reunited with the main flame later in the relay when it passes through Lhasa in mid-June.
Xinhua, agencies contributed to the story
