LIVE TELECAST: People in Beijing stop to watch the live telecast of the Olympic torch ascent of Mount Everest on a huge TV screen. State broadcaster CCTV telecast the event from base camp. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

In her gloved hand, the 23-year-old ethnic Tibetan held a specially adapted high-altitude Beijing Olympic torch she received from the bearer before her, Beijing student Huang Chungui, a Han Chinese.

Even in the thin mountain air and amid poor visibility, the torch burned brightly with a flame lit more than a month ago in ancient Olympia and carried up the mountain in a special cylinder.

Moments later, at 9.17am, she reached the 8,848m summit of the world's highest peak. There, on the top of the world, Ms Tsering Wangmo stood silent and stared into the distance.

Then, her jubilant teammates scrambled towards her and together they shouted 'We made it! Long live Beijing! Beijing welcomes you!' and 'Tashi Delek', a Tibetan greeting meaning 'may everything be well'.

Speaking in both Tibetan and Chinese, the climbers unfurled small Chinese and Beijing Olympics flags. Nearby, colourful Tibetan Buddhist prayer flags could be seen on the snow-covered ground.

At base camp, where state broadcaster CCTV had set up a centre to transmit the event live, organisers and crew broke into cheers. Many wept, overcome with emotion.

Ms Tsering Wangmo was the last of five torch-bearers who staged a six-minute relay, taking the torch the last 100m to the top of Everest.

The climbing team included 22 Tibetans, eight Han Chinese and one man from the Tujia minority, said Reuters.

After a tortured overseas torch relay dogged by fierce protests against China's policies in Tibet following unrest there in March, the Everest ascent was meant to be a triumphant and moving show of ethnic unity, said observers.

CCTV showed Tibetans in Lhasa following the climb on TV and toasting each other when climbers reached the peak.

The climb had been delayed by two weeks because of bad weather and shrouded in secrecy because organisers feared surprise protests. China had asked neighbouring Nepal to close off its side of Everest during the ascent to stave off any disruptions.

Professor Yang Dali, director of the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore, said of the feat's symbolism: 'In light of the international circumstances, it will be to China's credit to allow a Tibetan Chinese to be the first to take the torch up.'

The significance of the ascent, however, could not have been more powerful than for Ms Ji Ji, 39, another ethnic Tibetan who trudged the first leg of the last relay towards the peak.

She made the climb, she told state media, to honour her late husband, a mountaineer who died when a rockslide hit his car on the way to a climbing trip in Pakistan in 2005.

She wrote on her blog after the ascent: 'I feel very honoured to be able to witness history in the making. I believe that my husband is also able to feel my pride.'

While the response in Internet chatrooms was mostly patriotic and positive, a few questioned the need for such a grandiose and risky gesture.

'What a waste of money. Why not use it to solve the many problems here on earth,' said one post.

'Why do you need to play up the Olympic torch so much? The more you do, the more people want to cause you harm,' said another.

The Everest torch will be taken to Lhasa and join up in June with a separate torch that is making its way around mainland China.

Yesterday, Nepal's Tourism Ministry announced that climbers waiting on the southern Nepalese approach to Mount Everest would be allowed to proceed towards the summit from today.

tracyq@sph.com.sg