Dame Ellen MacArthur will be pleased to see that the cursed Olympic torch has left our sceptred Isle. On Sunday the round-the-world yachtswoman carried the Olympic torch over the Thames, on the last leg of the troubled flame’s relay course in Britain. By the time she received the torch, 37 pro-Tibet protestors had been arrested, many for trying to extinguish the flame.

Ellen said it had been a ‘difficult day’ and she was disappointed the positive aspects of the Olympics had not been highlighted.
‘If the Olympics were not being held in Beijing, then there would not be an opportunity to communicate these matters to this extent on a world stage,’ she added.
*Ellen was awarded France’s highest decoration, the Legion d’Honneur by French president Nicolas Sarkozy, during the leader’s spring visit to London.