Daily Times

LAHORE: Queen’s Baton Relay of the Commonwealth Games 2018 – to be held in Gold Coast in Australia from April 4 to 19 – will visit Lahore in September this year. Pakistan will welcome the Queen’s Baton Relay as it makes its way around the 70 nations and territories of the Commonwealth. Pakistan won five medals at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in 2010: two golds in wrestling, a silver in Greco-Roman wrestling and two bronze medals in boxing. Pakistan also won five medals at the 2006 Games in Melbourne, Australia with a gold and bronze in weightlifting and silvers in boxing, hockey and shooting.

The Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) has started arrangements for the visit of the team that will bring the baton. Pakistan is among the member countries of the Commonwealth Games. The baton will be taken to all member countries before reaching Australia on December 25, and then start its final journey within the country and complete it in the next four months to reach the main stadium on April 4 to be lit to inaugurate the sports gala. It had started its journey from Buckingham Palace, London, the residence of Queen Elizabeth II of the UK, in March this year. The Queen was the first baton-bearer and she had put her message into the baton, which will be read out at the time of the opening of the Games on April 4.

The baton will reach its final destination after completing a distance of 230,000 kilometres which will take around 388 days. It has to pass through five continents — Africa (18 countries), Asia (seven countries), Caribbean and America (13 countries), Europe (three) and Pacific (11). The countries, which in the past had been ruled by the British, are members of the Commonwealth Games.

The baton will be in Pakistan on September 30 and it will be placed in front of the Lahorties at Minar-i-Pakistan either on October 1 or 2 in view of Ashura. A private school will be among the organisers of the ceremony. Hockey Olympians may be invited to lift the baton from Town Hall to Minar-i-Pakistan.

Published in Daily Times, August 21^st , 2017.