So they've done it. Chinese mountaineers finally raised the Olympic torch on top of Everest this morning. To get there they overcame difficulties that threatened to derail the ascent, or delay it beyond China's weather-related May 10 deadline. They sat out high winds and snowstorms that buried or destroyed their camps and rope-routes. Then they dug through fresh snow to repair equipment. This morning, they headed for the summit against a backdrop of steely clouds and blowing snow, though mercifully the wind had dropped.

Once they reached the peak, they behaved like any other summit party, though perhaps a little more solemnly, as they slapped each other on the back, and passed the torch from hand to hand. Official congratulations on state television all emphasized how they'd conquered their difficulties.

They deserve their success, but in one sense they were beaten before they started. Olympic organizers had visualized the Everest ascent as the high point of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Torch Relay. It was meant to provide the most dramatic images in a relay chock-full of superlatives--the longest, the highest, the largest number of countries, runners etc.

This hasn't happened. The defining moments of the Beijing 2008 Torch Relay will forever be from London and Paris, where 'Free Tibet' protesters jostled torch bearers and police tackled demonstrators to the ground. Those pictures triggered an international online slanging match about China's place in the world. Angry young Chinese netizens bubbled with fury at what they saw as a deliberate slight to newly-confident China, while Western human rights activists jabbed away at China's short-comings.

The sight of the torch on top of Everest cannot override these events.