JOIN USIndian sportspersons will be deprived of a chance to hold the Queen’s Baton of the 2014 Commonwealth Games and run in relay on October 12-13 as Indian Olympic Association on Thursday decided to make the QBR ceremony a low-key affair due to lack of security arrangements.
IOA officials, in a meeting here, decided to host the Queen’s Baton but without the relay by sportspersons in view of the constraints in providing security arrangements due to the Dussehra festival. “We will receive the QBR at Indira Gandhi International Airport with all necessary due respect and honour. But we have decided not to have a relay where sportspersons will run for a few metres in turn holding the Baton,” acting IOA chief Vijay Kumar Malhotra said.
“2014 Glasgow CWG authorities are not going to revise their schedule. So, we have decided to revise the programme and curtail it to some functions which would uphold the dignity of QBR and the principles underlying the Commonwealth Games. The details of the revised programme will be decided in a day or two,” said Malhotra after the meeting which was also attended by the IOC member in India, Randhir Singh.
The Queen’s Baton Relay will be launched on October 9 at Buckingham Palace, London, where Her Majesty The Queen Elizabeth II will place Her message to the Commonwealth into the Baton and it will stay here for two days (on October 12 and 13) as the city will be its first stop as the host of the last Games in 2010.
According to the itinerary, the Queen’s Baton Relay will reach Dhaka from Delhi on October 14 and then proceed to Islamabad on Oct 16.