The Beijing 2008 Olympics torch relay will travel across all continents and scale Mount Everest, the Games' chief organiser said yesterday.

Emulating the Athens 2004 Games, which organised the first global torch relay, the Beijing relay will visit 98 cities, including 70 in China.

"The torch will also go to the top of Mount Everest as it is known in the west," Liu Qi told an International Olympic Committee (IOC) meeting. "This has never been done before."

He did not say from which side of the mountain - Tibetan or Nepalese - the torch would travel.

Chinese troops invaded the remote mountainous region of Tibet in 1950. The Dalai Lama, Tibet's god-king, fled after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959 and now lives in exile in northern India.

Tibetans have staged protests against China's occupation at the Athens Olympics and the Turin Winter Games, due to open today.

The Beijing relay will use 15,000 runners starting in March and finishing in Beijing in August 2008.

"This relay will give expression to our slogan 'one world one dream'," Liu said.

He said detailed planning for the relay as well as the Games' opening ceremony was under way. He did not name the cities or countries through which the torch would go.

The IOC yesterday praised the Beijing organisers for their efforts to be ready in time for August 2008.

President Jacques Rogge said he was certain the organisers would deliver what they had promised.

"We have no doubt that BOCOG (Beijing Games Organising Committee) will deliver splendidly," a smiling Rogge told an IOC session following the presentation of a progress report.

"I was seduced by the quality of management," he added.

Construction for the 2004 Athens Olympics was completed with only weeks to spare after the IOC had threatened to take the Games to another city because of building delays.

Liu Qi assured IOC members the main structures for all 2008 venues would be completed in 2006.

He said the athletes' village and the media centre would be finished this year.

He added the Games organisers were also planning to introduce an Olympic education programme in schools to shore up support for the Games across the vast Asian nation.

"Four-hundred million elementary students will be taught about the Olympic spirit," Liu said.

Rogge called the figure "mesmerising".

"That is what the Olympics are about," Rogge said.