The sudden turn at the start of the relay came after a ceremony in which Norman Bellingham, the CEO of the U.S. Olympic Committee and former Olympic kayaker, welcomed the torch to San Francisco.
The torch carrier then ran from the podium, passed a statue of former San Francisco Giant Willie McCovey, and disappeared. Despite the temporary confusion and the change in plans, people who saw the torch at the opening ceremony seemed satisfied.
Zuo Shiquan, 29, a Chinese visiting scholar in economics at San Jose State University arrived at 6 a.m. to see the torch and was not disappointed. "Maybe it took another route, and that's OK. It's safety," he said. "We did see the torch and took many photos."
Faceoffs between protesters and Chinese loyalists were becoming increasingly frequent just before the relay was to start.
"You are a big fat liar," Andrew Kwok, a native of Hong Kong and a Fremont, Calif., software engineer, yelled at Matt Laubcher, 37, an electrician from Reno, who was wearing a Tibetan flag on his back, decrying what he called the Chinese occupation of Tibet.
After police near the Ferry Building separated them, Kwok said: "They're trying to hijack the agenda. We should give our hate, our differences away, and enjoy the Games."
Nearby, in the shadow of the Bay Bridge, about 100 protesters surged from the roadside along the Embarcadero and surrounded a bus. The crowd began beating on its sides and broke its rear-view mirror before a police officer on a motorcycle announced over a megaphone: "We dropped people off at McCovey Cove. This bus is empty!"
Someone from the crowd yelled: "This is a decoy!" and the protesters moved on.
The San Francisco leg of the torch relay -- its only North American stop -- comes after violent protests in London and Paris. In Paris, security officials halted the event and ushered the torch onto a bus after swarms of protesters forced officials to repeatedly extinguish the flame.
Unlike London and Paris, San Francisco is home to 30,000 Chinese-Americans, many loyal to Beijing. Police worried that there might be confrontations with protesters.
But Chen Zheng, a graduate student at Stanford University, said she hoped there would be minimal conflicts. "It's just a torch. Why try to put it out?" she asked. "This is a celebration. Be happy. Why ruin things?"
Burmese groups, monks and Buddhist clergy carrying signs paraded across the pedestrian walkway of the Golden Gate Bridge yesterday morning. There were no arrests, and the march went peacefully.
The flame embarked in March from Greece on an 85,000-mile, six-continent journey -- one of the most ambitious torch relays in the history of the Olympics.
It has also proven to be among the most contentious, despite China's slogan: "Journey of Harmony."
John M. Glionna and Maria L. LaGanga write for the Los Angeles Times.
