Olympic Flame Fires Up NYC

The Olympic torch arrived for a five-borough tour of New York on Saturday, two months before the Athens Games opened and eight years before the city hoped to host its own Olympics.

Following a ceremony at Athens Square Park in Queens, Olympic long jumper Bob Beamon began the torch's 34-mile journey around the city - which was recently named as one of five finalists to host the 2012 Summer Games.

Beamon, a native of Queens who won gold at the 1968 Mexico City Games, held the torch aloft and then began his run as hundreds of spectators cheered wildly and waved Greek flags on a hot, humid morning.

He was followed by more than 100 other torchbearers, including rapper/actor Sean "P. Diddy" Combs - who missed his scheduled run when he got stuck in traffic while heading to Queens across the 59th Street Bridge.

Combs caught up with the torch and ran one-fifth of a mile along Broadway in lower Manhattan before handing the flame off to Nancy Olson, who carried it from her wheelchair.

New York is the 14th city on the torch's five-continent world tour, which began March 25 when it was lit at the temple of Hera in Olympia, Greece.

"It's fitting that the New York City leg of the torch relay kicks off from Queens - our most diverse borough in the most diverse city in the world," said Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who was joined by actress Melina Kanakaredes.

The torch's trip also included a ferry ride past New York's original flame, the Statue of Liberty. It was scheduled to end with a Times Square celebration late Saturday.

"We are proud to share the Olympic flame with the entire world," said Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, president of Athens 2004.

Among the other scheduled torchbearers were 9/11 survivors Lauren Manning, a senior vice president of Cantor Fitzgerald, and wheelchair-bound photorealist painter Chuck Close.

"I am going to be rolling, not running," Close said. "So it is going to be interesting to see how I keep my beard from catching on fire."

From New York, the torch will head to Montreal before crossing the Atlantic and ending its nearly 50,000-mile trip for the Aug. 13 opening of the Athens Games.