KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- The Olympic torch made a brief swing through Missouri on Thursday before heading back to Kansas on its 84-day, roundabout trip to the Olympic Games.
Thousands of people crowded into Barney Allis Plaza in downtown Kansas City, Mo., to see three-time Olympian Jim Ryun carry in the flame and light a cauldron from it.
Ryun's escorts included two members of the Georgia State Patrol who have been traveling with the flame to provide security.
"To think that this came from Greece and across the ocean is an exciting thing," said Warren Taylor, a Kansas City resident. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime event."
City officials and Olympic organizers held a brief ceremony as the relay paused for 30 minutes during a lunchtime jazz and food festival.
Ryun recalled that he was the only American athlete who carried the torch during the opening ceremonies in the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany. But this time, he said, "as the torch travels across the country, it will have touched a lot of hands."
The Georgia troopers stepped in as soon as the ceremony ended and the crowd surged forward toward Ryun and the cauldron holding the flame. The troopers stepped in front of the cauldron, cleared a space around it and moved the crowd back.
After the ceremony, a new torch was lit from the cauldron and the next runner headed out of the plaza, departing right on schedule at 1:12 p.m.
"This is going to make a lot of people late for work," said Bill Colby, a lawyer dashing back to his office.
One of the torchbearers was Alvin Brooks, head of the city's Ad Hoc Group Against Crime.
"When I think of the 10,000 (torchbearers), it brings a spirit of unity that crosses racial, religious and socioeconomic lines," Brooks said. "It's an honor to be part of that."
The route continued across the river to Kansas City, Kan., and then through the Kansas suburbs to Johnson County Community College.
The headquarters of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, just down the road from the college, was not on the route for the torch relay.
"We were caught up in the cola wars," said NCAA spokesman Dave Cawood.
Coca-Cola is a major corporate sponsor of the Olympic Games and the torch relay, but the NCAA, which administers most collegiate amateur sports competition, last year signed a contract with Pepsi as a corporate sponsor.
The NCAA and Olympic organizers couldn't come to an agreement that would take the torch route past the NCAA headquarters, Cawood said.
From the college the flame headed to Lawrence and Topeka, where it was scheduled to remain overnight at the Capitol before heading to Wichita on Friday.
The torch route covered 244 miles on Thursday, for a total to date of 4,832 miles on a journey that has gone from California to Arizona, then up the Pacific Coast to Washington, through Oregon and Idaho to Salt Lake City, then through Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas before reaching Missouri.
Thursday was the 20th day of an 84-day journey from Los Angeles to Atlanta.
The torch arrived in St. Joseph about 7:30 a.m., completing a 544-mile journey through four states by riders of the National Pony Express Association.
The riders -- like the Pony Express riders of 1860-61 -- traveled day and night to deliver the torch.
After a breakfast ceremony at the Pony Express stables, about 30 runners -- including two members of the U.S. Olympic weightlifting team -- carried the torch on a 12-mile route through the city before bicyclists took it south to Kansas City, Mo., and a swing back through Kansas.
About 10,000 runners, cyclists, riders, canoers and others are transporting the flame about 15,000 miles, through 42 states, from Los Angeles to Atlanta, where the Olympics begin July 19.
Copyright 1996 By The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.