Queen’s Baton to arrive in December

NAMIBIA will host the Queen’s Baton Relay, the traditional curtain-raiser to the Commonwealth Games from 13 to 16 December.

The baton, which departed from Buckingham Palace in London on 7 October, will travel through 72 nations and territories taking part at the 2022 Commonwealth Games and will arrive in Birmingham for the opening ceremony on 28 July 2022, after a journey of 294 days.

At a press conference in Windhoek on Wednesday, the secretary general of the Namibia National Olympic Committee, Joan Smit said they had organised a full programme for the Namibian leg of the relay.

“The baton will arrive in Windhoek on 13 December, when we will have a welcoming ceremony at the British High Commission, before it departs later that day to the coast,” she said.

“The next morning we will take the baton to the Topnaar community, to ensure that we expose some of our cultures, because the baton has a unique camera that will record wherever it travels, 24 hours a day around the world,” she said.

Äfter the Topnaars visit, we hope an athlete will run up with the baton on Dune 7, and then we will go down to Walvis Bay, where we have events planned for the entire day at the Jan Wilkens Stadium. We hope to invite all our entrepreneurs to come out and put up their stalls, we are going to have fun, and want to make sure as many people as possible come out to hold onto the baton and have photos taken with his historic baton,” she added.

On 15 December, the baton relay will start in the morning from Walvis Bay to Swakopmund, where a host of baton bearers including Namibia’s Olympians and Paralympians at the Tokyo Games will be involved.

More activities will be held at the Swakopmund Dome including sporting as well as cultural events, while the evening will be concluded with carols by candlelight. The baton will then continue on its worldwide journey, leaving for Eswatini the next morning.

Charlotte Fenton, the British deputy high commissioner in Namibia said that events planned here will provide the perfect opportunity to showcase what Namibia has to offer, including the country and its people, as well as the athletes who will participate at the Games.

She added that the 2022 Commonwealth Games will see more than 6 500 athletes in action, while it will be the first major multi-sport event that will award more medals to women than men, with 136 medals for women and 134 for men.

The Birmingham Games will also have the most extensive para-sports programme in Commonwealth Games history, with eight para-sports confirmed, including 3×3 wheelchair basketball for the first time, as well as additions to athletics and swimming events.