Security concerns have shortened the Canberra leg of the Beijing Olympic Games torch relay on Thursday and will restrict it to wide thoroughfares rather than weaving in and out of the city.
But with Tibet and China support groups promising peaceful participation, organisers now believe the only disruptions may come from a "ratbag element".
The revised route, to be issued today, follows main roads, including Commonwealth Avenue, but does not divert past the Chinese embassy in nearby Coronation Drive as originally proposed. The relay will be 16km rather than the planned 20km.
Areas such as Garema Place, Bunda Street and the National Museum of Australia were dropped from the relay because they were either too narrow or were located too far away from the rest of the route.
ACT Olympic Torch Relay Organising Committee chair Ted Quinlan said the torch would still go across Lake Burley Griffin with a rowing eight, even though that was not shown on the route, and "all the iconic buildings in the Parliamentary Triangle" would still be featured, albeit "from a bit more of a distance".
Mr Quinlan agreed the Chinese embassy might have been a flashpoint for protests, with Falun Gong supporters also maintaining a vigil across the road, but suggested the bigger reason it was left out was that Coronation Drive was "not all that wide and had a lump of concrete up the middle" making it difficult for the relay to negotiate.
"It's quite clear we would have liked to have used some narrower access ways to get, particularly through Civic, to get closer to the people and spent more time in the narrower access ways within the Parliamentary Triangle, but now a major criterion is the ability to keep the whole thing secure," he said.
There are also concerns of a ratbag element infiltrating the protests, with Foreign Minister Stephen Smith fearful of an "Olympic torch equivalent of football hooliganism".
Mr Quinlan said organisers were prepared for the "lowest common denominator" showing their hand and being "more interested in a little day of anarchy".
As a result the relay route had to be "highly secure".
"Unfortunately, because that is the case, the view of the relay and our ability to bring it much closer to the people is inhibited," he said.
The torch relay is scheduled to start from Reconciliation Place at 8.45am on Thursday, and organisers warn Canberrans to be prepared for traffic mayhem on the day.
The relay is expected to finish in Commonwealth Place about three hours later.
The Olympic flame arrived in Malaysia yesterday and will be guarded by about 1000 police during today's torch relay in Kuala Lumpur.
The details of the Australian leg comes as pro-Tibet groups pleaded with protesters not to hijack the torch relay in their name, saying it will only be counterproductive to their cause.
ACT Tibetan Community president Tsering Deki said she would not be happy if someone tried to grab the torch. "I'm just praying that nothing like that happens," she said.
"I hope there aren't people out there who pretend to be our supporter and do something like that. That is our major concern now."
The Australia Tibet Council executive director Paul Bourke says his group would hold a mass rally in front of Parliament House in a "strong and positive message of support for Tibet", with speakers, chanting monks and music.
Mr Bourke is meeting today with the Australian Federal Police about the rally which will start to form from 8am on Thursday.
The torch relay will pass Parliament House, near the rally, but Mr Bourke said his group was "not interested in creating images of people chasing down the torch".
"Logistically it's going to be hard to move around with all the road closures and we're also a bit concerned about the pro-China people down there and some of their confrontational language. The last thing we want is any clashes so I think it's better to have our people in a group rather than spread out," he said.
"We've never had any intention of disrupting the torch relay and it's too hard to try to chase it around."
Canberra Chinese Students and Scholars Association spokesman "Bamboo" Zhang said he expected up to 500 local students and 2000 interstate students to attend the torch relay as a show of support for it. He did not want any violence.
"We already tell our members again and again about safety and not doing violence," he said.
Mr Zhang said people were angry about the relay being disrupted across the world but they would not physically defend the torch if it was accosted in Canberra.
"Of course we would stay back because we don't have the ability because in our heart we see these people like the terrorism and we can't deal with terrorism ourselves," he said.
Falun Dafa Association spokesman John Deller said Falun Gong supporters would be maintaining their usual vigil across the road from the Chinese embassy, as they had done for the past eight years, and would not be taking it out to Commonwealth Avenue to greet the torch.
In a bizarre twist, Mr Deller said he was worried some demonstrators might put on a "Falun Gong shirt" and stage a protest in its name in an attempt to discredit the movement.
"There's a potential to do that. The Communist Party is well-known for orchestrating things to suit whatever propaganda ends it wishes to achieve," he said.
The 80 torch-bearers include 2005 London bombing survivor Gillian Hicks, Canberra's soup kitchen lady Stasia Dabrowski and former Olympians, including Ron Clarke.
Ms Dabrowski, 83, said she was honoured to take part in the relay and was not thinking about possible protests.
The Olympic torch will arrive in Canberra on Wednesday with fireworks at 6pm on Red Hill, Black Mountain and Mt Ainslie.
On Thursday, in a first for Canberra, pre-dawn fireworks will be set off about 6.10am on the foreshores of Lake Burley Griffin, at Rond Terrace and Commonwealth Place.
A community breakfast will be held from 6.30am at Reconciliation Place.
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