QUEEN"S BATON RALLY ON OCT 29

BATON RELAY SET TO BEGIN

The Queen's Baton Relay originates at the Buckingham Palace and carries a message from the Head of the Commonwealth, who is now Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. The baton will be handed over to the first relay runner and the relay will culminate with the final relay runner handing over the baton to the Queen or a representative of the Queen at the venue of the Commonwealth Games with the Queen's message being read out. As reported in another article in this site, the relay was introduced in 1958 at the Cardiff Commonwealth Games and has been a regular feature since. The last Baton Relay travelled across 71 countries and was the longest until then clocking 180000 km at the time. Thde Baton itself had 71 lights signifying the 71 participating countries and had a video camera and a GPS tracker fixed to it. One could see the progress of the Baton with the transmitting signal of the GPS tracker on the Commonwealth Games website at the time.

The Commonwealth Games 2010 Queen's Baton rally will be formally launched for the XIX Commonwealth Games when the baton is handed over by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to the Indian President Ms Pratibha Patil on October 29. The first relay runner will be Abhinav Bindra who is the Indian gold medal star of the Olympic Games and after which the baton will travel 190000 km in what will be the largest distance covered in the history of the Commonwealth Games ever. Other stars who will also be torchbearers will be Kapil Dev, former cricket captain of India, Vijender Singh the boxing star and Sania Mirza, the tennis ace.

As always, the Baton will carry the Queen's message which will be read out when the Baton is handed over from the last relay runner to the Queen's representative in New Delhi on October 3, 2010. The message is engraved into 18-carat gold leaf, in symbolic Indian design using laser technology. With the launch of the Baton relay will begin the final countdown to the Commonwealth Games 2010 in New Delhi.