THE ORGANISERS of the London Olympics have said they still plan to include Dublin as part of their itinerary for the Olympic torch next summer.
A final decision on the potential involvement of Dublin will be made by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) early next month.
Dublin was not included among the 1,018 villages, towns and cities in Britain and Northern Ireland to be visited by the torch on its 70-day journey before the lighting of the Olympic cauldron in London on July 27th, which were announced yesterday.
London Organising Committee of the Olympics and Paralympic Games chairman Sebastian Coe said they still wanted to include Dublin on the itinerary for “all sorts of reasons”.
The former Olympic gold medal winner added: “We are now really working through the feasibility of this.”
He said there was additional time built into the schedule for such a visit.
The torch arrives in Belfast on June 3rd from the Isle of Man and is due to depart for Scotland on June 7th.
It will visit 70 towns and villages in the North. If it does cross into the Republic it is likely to do so on June 6th.
An elaborate route has been set out for the torch to visit Dublin after a symbolic crossing of the Border.
The route starts at the Garden of Remembrance and proceeds down O’Connell Street crossing the Liffey twice before ending up at Merrion Square.
An Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) spokesman said the final decision on whether or not to have the torch cross into the Republic rests with the IOC.
A derogation has to be sought for the torch to travel outside the host state because of what happened in 2008 before the Beijing Olympics when the torch travelled through several countries and became the focus of anti-Chinese sentiment.
Since then it has been decided that the torch should only travel through the host country.
However, the OCI has been pressing the case with the IOC that it should pass through the Republic because the Irish team is a 32-county team.
