ABOUT 1,000 people cheered as they accompanied a team of 80 athletes and a Cabinet minister yesterday in the Tanzania leg of the Olympic torch relay, the flame’s only stop in Africa.

Officials have said that they do not expect any of the disruptions that have hit other torch runs in the world.

Tanzania Vice President Ali Mohamed Shein lit the Olympic torch, passing it on to Cabinet minister Mohamed Seif Khatib, who led the relay team from Dar es Salaam’s main train station the main stadium, about five kilometers away.

The crowd that marched behind the relay team waved miniature Olympic flags and chanted in the national language Kiswahili, “We are happy the torch came to Tanzania,” and “We are glad to receive it.”

The torch then went to Oman yesterday. It is scheduled to arrive in China on May 4, and the Olympics will begin Aug. 8.

On Friday, runners surrounded by rows of security carried the Olympic flame past thousands of jubilant Argentines in Buenos Aires.

People showered the parade route with confetti as banks, government offices and businesses took a half-day holiday for the only Latin American stop on the flame’s five-continent journey.

The torch’s 20-nation global journey is the longest in Olympic history, and is meant to build up excitement for the Beijing Games.

(SD-Agencies)