Queen’s baton in Sri lanka

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Commonwealth games are conducted with the participation of sportsmen and women from the countries which were the colonies under Great Britain once in 4 years.

The games scheduled to be conducted in 2018, officially known as the XXI Commonwealth Games and commonly known as Gold Coast 2018, will be held in the Gold CoastQueensland,  Australia between 4 and 15 April 2018.

One of the important remarkable events in the commonwealth games is the Queen’s Baton Relay, which is similar to the Olympic torch relay which is still, it isn’t popular as the Olympic relay.

The baton contains the message from the head of commonwealth countries, who is the king or queen of Britain . The relay traditionally starts at the Buckingham palace in London, travels through all commonwealth countries and territories and ends at the country hosting the commonwealth games, where the message is finally read out at the opening ceremony to officially open the games by a representative of the king or queen.

This year baton relay was launched on 13th of March, 2017 from London, with the message of current head of commonwealth, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.Queen handed over the baton to Australian cyclist , Anna Meares.

The baton relay of this  year will be the longest relay in commonwealth history covering 230,000 km in 388 days.

Still the cherishable days for sri lankans are when the baton stayed in our soil for 3 days.Sri lanka was the 53rd country to welcome the baton.

It was brought to Sri lanka from Bangladesh on 12th October, Thursday and sent back to Malaysia on 14th October, Saturday.

Ceremonies and cultural events were also conducted throughout the three days stay in our country with high security for the baton.

Sri lankan renowned athletes Susanthika Jayasinghe, Sriyani Kulawansha, Damayanthi Darsha and Dilantha Malagamuwa graced the baton at various ceremonies.

The baton will be opened up at the opening ceremony at Gold coast on 4th of April, 2018.

 

Image courtesy : http://dailysports.lk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/gold-coast.jpg