JERSEY will again welcome the Queen’s Baton – the Commonwealth equivalent of the Olympic Torch – when it makes its 11-month journey through all 71 member nations ahead of the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi.
The baton will start its journey on 6 November 2009 at Buckingham Palace, where it will be passed by the Queen to one of the most successful athletes from the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. Once it has travelled through the UK it will be flown to Jersey, on 23 November, for a two-day programme of visits to schools, sports clubs and community events, before it is passed onto Guernsey.
The baton’s final leg will take it into the Jawaharial Nehru Stadium in Delhi on 3 October 2010, ready for the opening ceremony of the 19th Commonwealth Games, when it will be returned to the Queen.
The decision to include all 71 Commonwealth countries, from six Commonwealth Games regions, was announced this week at a meeting of the Commonwealth Games Federation General Assembly in The Gambia, where it was also confirmed that Samoa will host the fifth Commonwealth Youth Games in 2015.
Picture: The Queen’s Baton in Jersey in 2005
