YICHANG, Central China - The Olympic torch continues its relay on Sunday in the "world's city of power", Yichang, where the famous Three Gorges Project is located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River.

It is the sacred flame's second stop in Central China's Hubei province and the relay will last 19 kilometers with 208 torchbearers in Yichang leg.

Olympic doubles tennis champion Li Ting opened the relay as the first torchbearer.

Chinese chess grandmaster Liu Dahua also appeared in the torch bearing team.

Cao Guangjing, deputy general manager of the China Yangtze Three Gorges Project Corporation, will be the last one in Yichang leg relay.

At the short launching ceremony, all torchbearers and spectators observe a minute of silence to victims of the 8.0-magnitude earthquake struck the southwestern China's Sichuan Province on May 12.

Yichang is the largest hydropower construction base of China with many large hydropower stations, such as Gezhou Dam Hydropower Plant, Three Gorges Hydropower Plant and Shuibuya Hydropower Plant.

The city is also the hometown of China's great patriotic poet Qu Yuan and the beauty Wang Zhaojun, an envoy of ethical friendship in Han Dynasty.

The Olympic sacred flame will next arrive in Jingzhou city, the last leg of the relay in Hubei province.