Commonwealth Games

Events > Commonwealth Games > Baton Relay

Queen's Baton Relay

Tradition

The Queen’s Baton Relay is one of the great traditions of the Commonwealth Games, having started at the Games in Cardiff, Wales, in 1958. The Baton is now as much a part of the Commonwealth Games tradition as the torch is part of the Olympics.

Route

The relay traditionally begins with a commencement ceremony at Buckingham Palace, London, which coincides with the city’s Commonwealth Day festivities. There Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II entrusts the baton containing Her ‘message to the athletes’ to the first honorary relay runner. The relay concludes at the Opening Ceremony, as the final relay runner hands the baton back to Her Majesty, or Her representative, and the message is read aloud. At that moment the Games begin.

The Kuala Lumpur 1998 Queen’s Baton Relay was the first to deliver the relay to other nations of the Commonwealth, besides England and the host country. In Melbourne, the Queen’s Baton will have travelled 16,936km from Buckingham Palace through the Commonwealth, before traveling around Australia on its journey to the MCG. This relay is the world’s longest, most inclusive relay, traveling more than 180,000 kilometres and visiting all 71 nations of the Commonwealth in one year and a day.

Baton Designs

For each Games, the host country designs a unique Baton. Here are descriptions of a few designs.

1994 (Victoria, British Columbia, Canada), the Baton was fashioned from sterling silver and was engraved with traditional symbols of the creative artists' families and cultures, including a wolf, a raven and an eagle with a frog in its mouth.

1998 (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) the Baton design was inspired by a traditional Malay artifact, the 'Gobek', which is a unique cylindrical areca nut-pounder widely used and displayed in Malay homes.

2002 (Manchester, England) The baton has special significance as it marks the Golden Jubilee of Her Majesty The Queen and was designed to symbolise the uniqueness of the individual and the common rhythm of humanity.

Unique Events

1998

Malaysia placed their own flavor on the Games, with the Queen’s Baton being carried into the stadium on an elephant. The baton was presented to Prince Edward by Malaysia’s first ever Commonwealth medal winner Koh Eng Tong, a bronze medallist in weightlifting in 1954.

2006

The baton has traditionally contained the message from the Queen to the athletes. For the 2006 Games in Melbourne, the 'Queen's mesage' was actually stored on a memory chip attached to the baton.