Right from the start, there were difficulties. Huang arrived in Olympia two days before the lighting ceremony to instruct the Greeks on how to assemble the torches.

"Maybe it's because they hold the ceremony every four years," he said, "but the Greeks didn't seem too focused on what we were saying. That had us worried."

On the eve of the ceremony, Huang assembled and tested a torch for Alexandros Nikolaidis, the first torchbearer. The following morning, he passed it on to the Greeks, stressing that "Alexander must use this specific one".

Afterward, Huang wrapped a backup torch in newspaper and tried to enter the ceremony site with it under his arm. He was stopped by a plainclothes policeman who took the torch away. With no command of the Greek language and no interpreter, an anxious Huang followed the policeman everywhere he went.

Fortunately, Nikolaidis' torch worked perfectly, for the policeman refused to return the backup until the ceremony was over.

On the first day of the Greek relay, several torches went out. "The torches must have been incorrectly assembled," Huang thought, as he chased after the relay.

When he caught up with the delegation, Huang found that the Greeks had not added tinfoil to the inside of the torch, which was necessary to insure that the flame burned evenly.

"It was already late and we had to guarantee that the next day's relay didn't have the same problem. So I told them to leave me the truck with all 600 torches. I crawled in back, took each torch apart, added the tinfoil and put them back together," he said.

"It took all night."

That was just the beginning. Two weeks later, Huang found himself in San Francisco, where the security situation did not allow the community cauldron to be assembled ahead of time.

When Huang tried to reach the site the next day, the roads were blocked.

His car never reached Justin Herman Plaza, the site of the city ceremony. The vehicle was surrounded by more than a thousand screaming protesters.

Huang was not worried about being beaten, but was concerned about not being able to assemble the community cauldron in time. At the height of the incident, an Australian member of the delegation suggested Huang and Lei Tao, head of BOCOG's torch relay safety division, hide for a while.

"You two are Chinese and we three look Caucasian," he said. "They might come get you first. Why don't you two hide in the toilet in back and let us handle them?"

"Thanks, but we're not dying in the washroom," Lei answered on Huang's behalf. "If it comes to that, we'll stand with you."

It was an hour before local police arrived and drove them to safety. The ceremony was relocated to the airport, and the community cauldron was never lit.

"Things were out of control in the US. I was very angry, and worried too, because I could not do my job," Huang said.

Huang, president of the Guangdong-based Zhongshan Vatti Gas Appliance Stock Co Ltd, has manufactured torches for the National Games, the National University Games, and many other competitions.