Announcing this in a joint press conference here today, the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president, Suresh Kalmadi, and the Executive Vice-President of the Beijing Olympics Games Organising Committee (BOGOC), Jiang Xiaoyu, said that the change was necessitated because of the logistical and operational reasons, besides global route plans involved.

Four years ago New Delhi organised the Athens Olympics torch relay followed by the Doha Games torch relay in 2006. This will be the third time in succession that New Delhi has been preferred over other Indian cities.

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) to this effect was signed between the two stakeholders — the IOA and the BOGOC — at a function here today following their meeting with Delhi’s Lt Governor Tejinder Khanna and Chief Minister Shiela Dikshit.

Expressing his satisfaction, Xiaoyu said he and his team had received excellent cooperation from all since their arrival and they hoped it would be a wonderful event for the others to emulate.

Elaborating on the relay, Kalmadi said that it would start from the Red Fort and culminate at the India Gate with 80 participants making the event possible. Of the 80, 57 will be from the national Olympic committee while five from the BOGOC and the rest from the sponsors of the event in India. At the end of the torch relay, there will be a cultural programme where the IOA has requested for some Chinese acrobats to take part.

The torch relay, said Xiaoyu, will pass through 19 countries and take 130 days for its completion with nearly 22,000 torch-bearers participating in it. The relay will also go around all the 31 provinces and autonomous Tibet and Hong Kong and Macau, China before arriving in Beijing.

Kalmadi, while thanking the Chinese government and the Games organisers for their help in agreeing to send equipment for New Delhi’s 2010 Commonwealth Games after the Olympics — an offer was made to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh his Chinese counterpart when the former visited Beijing last month — requested if the Indian athletes could be sent to China to train under their coaches for two years.

The BOGOC official, however, said that he will pass on the request to the people concerned on his return and get back to him. “I will go back and report to the people concerned (in government and in the organising committee). A decision on this will have to be taken through government channels,” he said.