U.S. Olympic Committee Chairman Peter Ueberroth is cutting short his stay at the Olympic meetings here to fly to San Francisco, where the sole North American leg of the relay visits Wednesday.

Ueberroth was scheduled to leave Tuesday in the middle of the International Olympic Committee's summit about the Beijing Games, following angry demonstrations during torch relay legs in London and Paris.

Protesters are demanding that Olympic organizers denounce China's policies on human rights and Tibet and the communist government's backing of the Sudanese military regime responsible for the killings in Darfur.

"The Olympic flame represents the unique power of the Olympic movement to inspire and unite people from every corner of the globe," said Ueberroth, who will be USOC's senior official in San Francisco on Wednesday. He will not carry the torch. "Any time the Olympic flame visits your country, it is an honor."

A protester got by security at the lighting of the torch in Athens on March 25. The initial response by Olympic organizers had been standoffish, an attempt to prevent an escalation of the controversies.

But after Monday's violence and arrests in Paris, IOC President Jacques Rogge voiced his greatest concern about the situation in Tibet.

"The International Olympic Committee has expressed its serious concern and calls for a rapid peaceful resolution in Tibet," Rogge said.

The flame arrived in Paris on Monday and is headed to San Francisco, where it will be kept overnight before Wednesday's torch relay along the waterfront.

At least 1,000 Darfur advocates are expected in San Francisco, says Jill Savitt of Dream for Darfur, an organization focusing public attention on China's ties to Sudan.

Public institutions and corporate groups haven't been willing to risk China's anger, she says. "The public praising of China is amazing."

So groups like hers are vital to making the public aware of China's darker side, Savitt says. But she believes that the Darfur advocates will be peaceful.

Tsering Gyurmey of the Tibetan Association of Northern California says organizers expect "a couple of thousand" protesters. But the organized Tibetan protests in San Francisco will concentrate on the arrival of the Tibetan freedom torch this morning, and an evening candlelight vigil featuring actor Richard Gere and former archbishop Desmond Tutu, Gyurmey said.

About 3,000 police were called out to protect relay runners in Paris. The Interior Ministry said police made 18 arrests.

The 17.4-mile relay in Paris started at the Eiffel Tower; the chaos started there moments later. Green Party activist Sylvain Garel lunged for the first torchbearer, former hurdler Stephane Diagana, and shouted "Freedom for the Chinese!" before security officials pulled him back.

Throughout the day, protesters booed trucks emblazoned with the names of Olympic corporate sponsors, chained themselves to railings and hurled water at the flame. Some unfurled banners depicting the Olympic rings as handcuffs from the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame cathedral. Others waved signs reading "the flame of shame."

Jean-Francois Lamour, France's former sports minister, explained that although the torch was doused several times, the Olympic flame still burned in a lantern that keeps it overnight and on airplane flights.

A spokesman for the French Olympic Committee, Denis Masseglia, estimated that a third of the 80 athletes and other VIPs who had been slated to carry the torch did not get to do so.

Police had hoped to prevent the chaos that marred the relay in London a day earlier. There, police had repeatedly scuffled with activists, and 37 people were arrested.

The Olympic torch relay was created by German organizers of the 1936 Berlin Games, according to Olympic historian David Wallechinsky. Athens in 2004 had the first global torch relay, he said.

"This is really unprecedented. This is the first time we've had big, major protests against the torch relay," Wallechinsky said of the protests in London and Paris.

The torch goes to Buenos Aires on Friday, visiting 21 international cities and every province in China before the Olympic flame is lighted at opening ceremonies on Aug. 8.

Contributing: Wire reports; Vicki Michaelis in Denver and Elizabeth Weise in San Francisco.

Enlarge By Thibault Camus, AP Police apprehend an anti-China, pro-Tibet demonstrator, waving a Tibetan flag, right, as he tries to interrupt the Olympic torch parade before an athlete in a wheelchair takes the relay, shortly after its beginning near the Eiffel tower in Paris Monday. Security officials extinguished the Olympic torch twice amid heavy protests and escorted the flame onto a bus, apparently to move it away from protesters.

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