THE Queen’s Baton begins it journey across Guyana today when His Excellency, President Bharrat Jagdeo will catalyse the local section of the relay which has been ongoing in the nations of the Commonwealth, as a sign of the impending Commonwealth Games, since last October.
On the first of the two days earmarked for local circulation, the baton will make its way through the streets of Georgetown en route to its final stop at the University of Guyana’s Turkeyen Campus before departing for Berbice via the Berbice River Bridge.
The Baton will be passed from hand to hand and will follow a route which gravitates around Guyana’s most imposing edifices and monuments of poignant historical significance.
This will be the second such sojourn for a Queen’s Baton on local soil as Guyana also participated in the relay for the last hosting of the games in 2006.
This year the addition of not only Berbice but also Lethem as destinations for the technological marvel marks the exploitation of the opportunity to showcase as much of Guyana as possible through the utilisation of the built in camera feature of the baton.
As is the goal of the relay to unite the Commonwealth so is the goal of the Local Organising Committee to unite all of Guyana under a single banner for the world to see; as 180 baton bearers have been selected from all walks of life to play a part in this rite of passage for the participants of the games.
Not only does this figure include all of the local sporting associations and federations affiliated to the Guyana Olympic Association but schools, government officials and a host of other dignitaries are expected to come out and bolster the journey of the baton which, thanks to the global positioning system (GPS), will be available for viewing on the official website of the Delhi 2010 games.