Salt Lake City's Olympic message of peace, environmental protection and social justice is on its way to Torino, Italy, which will host the 2006 Winter Games.

In a ceremony at City Hall Monday, Mayor Rocky Anderson, accompanied by dozens of elementary school children, sent the message off with two bicyclists, one of them deputy Department of Public Utilities director Jeff Neirmeyer. Along with a companion, Neirmeyer will take the message to New York where it will board a yacht bound for Belgium. From there the message will be hiked and biked to Torino with Anderson joining the European trek when it nears the Italian border.

Interested parties can track the message's progress on www.slc2torino.com.

Anderson's message to Torino touched on global tragedies like the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan, saying "the international community can put an end to this tragedy, if only it has the will."

On the environment, the mayor pointed to global warming and its potential disastrous effects on ocean ecosystems. He said governments and businesses large and small should "do their part to conserve energy and to utilize clean, renewable sources of energy."

Anderson also touched on health care and the need to get doctors to developing countries.

"We have only one option if we are to be part of a truly civilized world," the message stated. "That option is to do all we can, as individuals, as nations and as an international community, to achieve and sustain peace, to protect our world and the future from climatic disaster and to provide for the essential health care needs and the protection of our brothers and sisters around the world."

The delivering of the message is an Olympic tradition started by officials from Lillehammer, Norway, which hosted the Winter Games in 1994. Representatives from Lillehammer delivered a message of the environment, peace and youth to Nagano (host of the 1998 Winter Games), which delivered a similar message to Salt Lake City in 2002.

Per the tradition, the message must be delivered using transportation methods that don't burn fossil fuels. Salt Lake City's message should reach Torino Mayor Sergio Chiamparino in July.

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E-mail: bsnyder@desnews.com