LONDON — The Olympic torch relay through London was almost abandoned yesterday as thousands of demonstrators turned the showcase parade into an ugly and chaotic farce.

The Daily Telegraph has learned that organizers, including Chinese officials, discussed “pulling out” of the day-long relay after just a few hours, as police fought running battles with wave after wave of anti-China protesters.

Thirty-seven people were arrested, mostly for breaching the peace and public order offences, in what had officially been described as a “journey of harmony” to celebrate this year’s Beijing Olympics. Some of the high-profile sports stars who ran the relay branded it “a national disgrace.” Throughout the 31-mile route, campaigners protesting against China’s crackdown on pro-independence activists in Tibet and its human rights record, broke from the crowds and charged toward the flame.

A former Blue Peter presenter, Konnie Huq, was caught in the middle of an ugly scuffle as a man attempted to wrestle the torch from her hands. Minutes later two men tried to put out the flame with a fire extinguisher.

The Chinese ambassador to Britain was forced into an unscheduled change to her leg of the relay in China Town and, when the parade reached St. Paul’s Cathedral, organizers told the torch bearer to retreat to a bus and drive past.

More than 2,000 police officers protected the flame’s passage, although one source said that they were surprised by how “relentless” the attempts were to disrupt the parade at “every corner.”

Some onlookers who had come to cheer the parade said that the sense of occasion was entirely lost as the relay turned into a military-style operation to get through the streets as quickly as possible.

With the world watching, the images of scuffles between police and protesters left the relay’s organizers deeply embarrassed. They had expected peaceful protests on a smaller scale, but by lunchtime the disruption was so severe and so frequent that they held discussions about abandoning the rest of the relay.