Queen’s Baton Relay celebrated in Mozambique
The Queen’s Baton is a powerful symbol of the unity and diversity of the 71 nations and territories of the Commonwealth.
Queen's Baton bearers in Maputo streets
The Queen’s Baton Relay toured Mozambique for four days early May, as part of a 52-nation journey to Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, home for the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
The Baton carries a special hand-written message from Her Majesty the Queen, which will be read out at the opening ceremony of the Games. The relay has been a moment to highlight the Commonwealth’s shared values of peace, respect and understanding, and also the importance of sports and a friendly competition.
As she welcomed the Baton in Maputo, the British High Commissioner Joanna Kuenssberg reminded of the last Commonwealth Games in her home city of Glasgow as “a great example of the power of diversity and friendly competition to unite us all the over 2 billion Commonwealth citizens”.
The Queen’s Baton is a powerful symbol of the unity and diversity of the 71 nations and territories of the Commonwealth. Every preceding year to the Games, the Queen’s Baton travels around the Commonwealth space, on a 190,000km journey to mobilize and get people excited about the games.
This year, the journey started on March 13th, 2017, the Commonwealth Day, in Buckingham Palace after the Queen put her special message to the Commonwealth in the Baton.
Mozambique was the 15th country to receive the Queen’s Baton, as it came straight from Botswana and moved on to Swaziland as next stop.