SAN FRANCISCO - The Olympic torch played hide and seek with thousands of demonstrators and spectators crowding the city's waterfront Wednesday before being spirited away without even a formal goodbye on its symbolic journey to the Beijing Games.
After its parade rout, was rerouted and shortened to prevent disruptions by massive crowds of protesters, the planned closing ceremony at the San Francisco Bay waterfront was canceled and moved to San Francisco International Airport. The flame was put directly on a plane and was not displayed.
The last-minute changes to the route and site of the closing ceremony were made amid security concerns following chaotic protests over the torch in Paris and London, but officials effectively prevented many spectators who wanted to see the flame from witnessing the historic moment.
The flame traveled in switchbacks and left the crowds confused and waiting for a parade that never arrived. Protesters also hurriedly changed plans and chased the rerouted flame.
Mayor Gavin Newsom told The Associated Press that the well-choreographed switch of the site of the closing ceremony was prompted by the size and behavior of the crowds amassing outside AT&T Park.
There was "a disproportionate concentration of people in and around the start of the relay," he said in a phone interview while traveling in a caravan that accompanied the torch.
Less than an hour before the relay began, officials cut the original six-mile route nearly in half.
Then, at the opening ceremony, the first torchbearer took the flame from a lantern brought to the stage and held it aloft before running into a warehouse. A motorcycle escort departed, but the torchbearer was nowhere in sight.
Officials drove the Olympic torch about a mile inland and handed it off to two runners away from protesters and media, and they began jogging toward the Golden Gate Bridge, in the opposite direction of the crowds awaiting its passing. Further confusion followed, with the torch convoy apparently stopped near the bridge before heading southward to the airport.
As the flame traveled toward the airport, news dribbled through the crowds of more than 10,000 spectators and protesters gathered at the waterfront that the torch wasn't coming there.
There were signs of tension even before the torch relay began. Pro-Tibet and pro-China groups were given side-by-side permits to demonstrate, and representatives from both sides spilled from their sanctioned sites across a major street and shouted at each other nose to nose, with no visible police presence to separate them.
At least one torchbearer decided to show her support for Tibetan independence during her moment in the spotlight. After being passed the Olympic flame, Majora Carter pulled out a small Tibetan flag that she had hidden in her shirt sleeve.
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