St. Louis welcomes Olympic torch as U.S. tour marches on

ST. LOUIS (AP) _ A century since becoming the first American city to host the modern-era Olympic Games, St. Louis welcomed back the Olympic flame Thursday. <br/><br/>``The eyes of the world are on St.

Thursday, June 17th 2004, 6:05 am

By: News On 6

ST. LOUIS (AP) _ A century since becoming the first American city to host the modern-era Olympic Games, St. Louis welcomed back the Olympic flame Thursday.

``The eyes of the world are on St. Louis today,'' Mayor Francis Slay told hundreds who gathered at the towering Gateway Arch on the flame's second leg of a four-city U.S. tour.

Moments later, a flamekeeper fired up a torch held by actor-comedian Joe Torry, a St. Louis native, who trotted off to start the flame's 34-mile tour of the city.

A quarter mile later, after passing the flame to the next torchbearer in a lineup of 125, a breathless Torry reveled in ``the proudest moment of my life.''

The celebration culminated Thursday night in sprawling Forest Park, where the final torchbearer _ Olympic gold medalist Jackie Joyner-Kersee of nearby East St. Louis, Ill. _ ran down a hill to light the Olympic cauldron.

``This is the greatest. This is the ultimate compliment, and I am very grateful and very blessed,'' Joyner-Kersee said.

St. Louis' day with the Olympic flame, which is bound for Athens in time for the August games, came a day after its arrival in the United States. The flame had a celebrity-studded journey through Los Angeles on Wednesday and will visit Atlanta on Friday and New York on Saturday.

Speed skater and five-time gold medalist Bonnie Blair pronounced her part of the torch run as ``very cool'' and said the hot summer day was ``a little warmer than the Winter Olympics.''

The route included a pass by Washington University's Francis Field, the site of the track-and-field events of the 1904 Games.

The flame's 46,800-mile journey began June 4. It traveled through Africa and South America for the first time. It arrives in Athens for the opening ceremony Aug. 13.