its totally lame. they’ve closed off the mountain to all other expeditions (and screwed them over) just so they could do this and prevent any protests against Tibet. yet interestingly, the article says that the majority of the team that brought the torch to the summit were Tibetan.

Yeah, the Tibetan climbers were the safest bet to get it to the top, it is ironic though. What I can’t figure out is why they closed off all of Cho Oyu also. ??

That sucks for all the expeditions that put in thousands of dollars in logistics and all the time and effort to get a short notice “smackdown”.

I watched the news all morning today and didn’t get a whiff of any of this…

My hunch tells me that the US media made a business decision to cool down on the whole situation. After all, all national networks, including ones that do no share the broadcast rights, stand to make a bunch from ad revenue both during the games and from the months leading up to it. A flood of negative press (re the event) will only hurt ad sales and/or decrease ad value.

some interesting articles related to this topic:

this and this

actually, i read some articles on alpinist.com saying that they military was there and they had confiscated or were restricting the use of cameras by anyone other than the Chinise team. there were also reports that they would ‘shoot to kill’ if they spotted any unauthorized climbers trying to ascend up to the higher camps.

from alpinist.com:

Keeping tight control over the relay ceremony on Everest, Chinese authorities enforced a media blackout (excluding an official media team) on the north (Tibetan) side of Everest. On the south side Nepalese authorities, in compliance with China’s communication and protest restrictions, confiscated satellite phones and recording devices, and evacuated journalists and a climber, William Brant Holland, who was in possession of a “Free Tibet” banner, from Everest base camp. These restrictions, compounded with last-minute decisions and changes regarding rules for climbing Everest this spring, generated extreme friction between climbers and both Chinese and Nepalese troops and officials (more information is available in the April 29, April 9 and March 19, 2008 NewsWires). According to statements made earlier this spring by the China Tibet Mountaineering Association, climbing restrictions will be lifted unconditionally beginning Sunday, May 11.

http://www.alpinist.com/doc/web08s/newswire-olympic-torch-everest-summit