The Olympic torch relay should be confined to the host country at future games, a senior IOC member said yesterday, after the Beijing flame encountered serious disruptions in Europe.
IOC press commission chief Kevan Gosper said it would be wrong to alter or stop the ongoing 137,000-km Beijing relay after violent protests in London and Paris, but he added he believed the IOC should look at scrapping the international leg next time.
"I am a firm believer that we had the right template in the first place, that the torch should go from Olympia, Greece to the host country, and I would expect that the executive committee will review that," he told reporters.
The first modern torch relay took place before the 1936 Berlin Games.
Before the 2000 Sydney Games the torch went to some Pacific islands and in 2004, when the Games returned to its ancient home, the flame travelled to all previous host cities before returning to Athens for the opening ceremony.
Asked whether Beijing organisers had gone ahead with its ambitious torch relay plan against the advice of the IOC coordination commission, Gosper said they had not.
"The Beijing Cocom discussed the concerns with what could happen on the torch relay route but the decision had already been taken and we simply moved a state of preparedness," said the Australian, a vice-chairman of the commission.
Officials in Paris on Monday were forced to extinguish the Olympic flame and carry it by bus when protesters against Chinese policy in Tibet tried to seize it.
In London the day before, activists waving Tibetan flags and shouting "Shame on China" also turned the event into a torrid obstacle course.
Gosper denounced the protesters as "professional spoilers" who were "filled with resentment and hate" and said the relay should continue.
"My belief is the torch relay will stay on course," he said.
"There might be adjustments, but I think it would be wrong, actually, to try and do anything more than try to get the torch through to its ultimate destination.
"But certainly, the IOC executive board should review the torch relay programme for the future."
Another member of the coordination commission, Alex Gilady, said he expected the IOC executive board to discuss international torch relays, but not at this week's Beijing meeting.
British IOC member Craig Reedie said the torch relay for the 2012 London Games had not yet been discussed, and a day after the violent demonstrations around the Beijing relay in the British capital was not the best time to make decisions.
"Instant legislation is almost always bad legislation," he said.
"Let it settle down. I would have thought the IOC would also like to think about it as well after the Beijing Games.
"The Athens torch relay was such a huge success," he added. "This one appears to have had a few problems, but we're only a third of the way through it.
"Let's wait until we've got the whole picture until we make up our minds on that one."