Some protests are likely during the torch run leading up to next year’s Winter Olympics in Vancouver, but that will not take away from its success, organizers said on Friday.
Some anti-Olympics and Native rights activists have warned they may disrupt the torch relay that will begin Oct. 30, in Victoria, British Columbia, and cover 45,000km as it crisscrosses Canada.
“I think you would have to be naive to think that we aren’t going to, from time to time along the route, see people express themselves. That’s a Canadian tradition,” Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) chief executive John Furlong said.
Furlong said some 50,000 people are expected to watch the torch run start in Victoria, and he predicted it would be an overwhelming success.
“People need to respect that this is a time for celebration, for families and children,” he said.
Unlike the torch relay for the Beijing Summer Olympics, which was an international event and became the focus of repeated protests, organizers of next year’s Games decided to limit the run to just Canada.
But the route will also take the relay through more than 100 Aboriginal communities, which have historically suffered the country’s worst rates of poverty and social problems.
One of the most vocal anti-Olympic groups has charged the entire 2010 Games are being held on “stolen Native land” — a claim dismissed by Aboriginal groups that are part of the Olympic organizing effort.
Concern over a backlash to the torch run is believed to be part of the reason one corporate sponsor asked former Assembly of First Nations national chief Phil Fontaine to advise on increasing Native participation in the event.
Civil liberties groups have complained that security rules designed to protect the torch relay and competition events could quash legitimate political protests.
VANOC is not against free speech, but how officials respond will be decided on a case-by-case basis, just as they would at any other major sporting event, VANOC deputy chief executive Dave Cobb said.
“If somebody has some slogan on a T-shirt it is very unlikely to get our attention. I think if you’ve got a big group of people holding up signs, obstructing the view or distracting athletes, then it is something we would look at more,” Cobb said.
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