Olympic torch scales Everest

EVEREST BASE CAMP, Tibet (CNN) — The Olympic flame reached the top of the world Thursday morning, carried to the summit of Mount Everest by climbers wearing oxygen masks to breathe in the thin air of the earth’s highest point.

A 21-year-old Tibetan woman — the youngest member of the expedition — carried the flame atop the peak. Once there, the mountaineers removed their masks so television cameras could record their faces and so they could shout and cheer their feat.

The climbers, braving gusty winds and freezing windchill, relayed the flame — ignited from the main Olympic flame, now making a course across China en route to host city Beijing — to the summit by 9:15 a.m. (9:15 p.m. ET Wednesday), about two hours ahead of schedule.

"They were very motivated; they were very excited," journalist Tomas Etzler said from the Everest base camp at 5,360 meters (17,600 ft).

The climbers started their ascent at 3 a.m. Thursday (3 p.m. Wednesday) along the Tibetan side of Everest, known there as Chomolungma. Twenty-two of the 31 climbers were Tibetan.

The torches and fuel used in the relay were specially developed by Chinese research, allowing the flame to continue burning at such high elevations, Etzler said.

Harsh weather had forced a delay in the climb, damaging several camps along the way, officials said, but earlier Wednesday, a spokesman for the Chinese climbers said two of three damaged camps had been repaired and mountaineers were on the way to fix the third.