Queen’s Baton Relay reaches Sri Lanka today

Thursday, 12 October 2017 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

By Hishan Welmilla

The Commonwealth Games 2018 Queen’s Baton Relay will reach Sri Lanka today.

The Queen’s Baton Relay will be in Colombo as it tours the globe ahead of next year’s Commonwealth Games in Australia.

Sri Lanka has planned a special program to welcome the Queens Baton under the patronage of Sri Lanka’s Minister of Sports Dayasiri Jayasekara and the President of the National Olympic Committee of Sri Lanka Hemasiri Fernando will be held at the Bandaranaike International Airport in Katunayake, Sri Lanka.

The program is scheduled to commence at 4.45 p.m.

The Queen’s Baton is expected to remain in Sri Lanka till 13 October before it moves to the next destination.

The Baton Relay is similar to the Olympic Torch Relay and before Sri Lanka it had already been carried to 53 countries. It will eventually reach the host country, Australia, on 24 December.

On 4 April 2018, over 6,600 athletes and team officials from 70 nations and territories will converge on the Gold Coast for an 11-day sporting and cultural event.

Britain’s Prince Charles will stand in for his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, at the Commonwealth Games ceremony in Australia next year. The heir to Britain’s throne will read out a message from the 91-year-old monarch at the Games.

Prince Charles had last opened the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi on the Queen’s behalf and next year’s games will be the seventh time that he has attended the event.

Traditionally, the message read out by the UK’s Head of State is contained in the Queen’s Baton, which is on a 388-day journey across all the nations and territories of the Commonwealth following the launch of the Queen’s Baton Relay at Buckingham Palace in March this year.

It is reported that the 2018 Queen’s Baton Relay is the longest in the history of the Commonwealth Games and is supposed to cover a distance of approximately 230,000 km in 388 days.