Beijing Olympic torch relay in St. Petersburg ends

ST. PETERSBURG, April 5 (Xinhua) -- The Beijing Olympic torch relay in St. Petersburg, the third leg of its global journey, ended on Saturday afternoon at the Palace Square.

At around 3 p.m. (1100 GMT), the last torchbearer Svetlana Zhurova, the vice speaker of Russian State Duma and a gold medalist at 2006 Turin Winter Olympics, ran into the Palace Squareon the south of the Winter Palace, where a huge crowd had already waited to received the Olympic flame.

A grand celebration was held starting from 2:30 p.m. at the square. After Zhurova lit the cauldron, the audience brought out a burst of applause.

Galina Zybina, shot put gold medalist at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, Finland, was the first torchbearer running from the Victory Square at about 10:45 a.m. (0645 GMT).

After 250 meters, she handed over the flame to Leonid Tyagachyov, the president of the Russian Olympic Committee, who ran another 250 meters.

There were a total of 80 torchbearers in St. Petersburg, including famous athletes, cultural and business figures and politicians, covering a distance of about 20 kilometers.

The Olympic torch had already been relayed in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on April 2 and Turkey's Istanbul on April 3. It will go on Saturday evening from St. Petersburg to London, the capital of Britain.