Queens Baton Unveiled
10th February 2005

Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, has unveiled the innovative baton that will carry the Queen's 'message to the athletes' from Buckingham Palace to the Opening Ceremony of the Melbourne Commonwealth Games.

The revolutionary baton contains state of the art technical features including:
- a global positioning system (GPS) to track the baton's location at all times
- two tiny 'baton cam' cameras and a microphone
- 200 lights, which provide visual effects at key relay moments, such as during runner handovers, triggered by radio frequency identification devices housed in the baton stand and in runner thumb gloves
- interaqctive web-based features, which allow people across the globe to follow the baton's epic journey as it happens.

The baton relay will be launched by the Queen on 14 March (Commonwealth Day) 2005 and one year and one day later will arrive at the Opening Ceremony at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. For the first time ever, the relay will include all 71 nations of the Commonwealth.

The baton will be arriving in Scotland on 27th March (Easter Sunday) and will be in Scotland until 30th March. The programme is currently being developed with sports, local authorities and schools.

Full details of the Queens Baton Relay