THE Glasgow 2014 Queen's Baton Relay sees the Commonwealth baton arrive in Bangladesh today.
The relay was launched last week at Buckingham Palace, before the baton was flown to Delhi, host city of the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
There, it began a 288-day journey during which it will visit 70 nations and cover 190,000 kilometres. It carries a message from the Queen to the Commonwealth which will be read out at the opening ceremony of next year's Games, on July 23, in Glasgow.
Yesterday saw the first gifting of a granite 'gemstone' from the baton, at Delhi's Qutub Minar tower. The baton design incorporates a granite 'gemstone' sourced from Ailsa Craig, which will be gifted to each nation and territory along the route. It can be released only by opening a puzzle mechanism.
The gemstones were crafted by Kays of Scotland, and embellished by jewellers from Glasgow School of Art. Stops over the weekend also included the Taj Mahal, and a visit to a Delhi school.
The baton moves on to Bangladesh today and will reach Pakistan on Wednesday, before being carried onwards to Sri Lanka on Saturday.
It will pass through Malaysia, Singapore and the Maldives next week.
Next week also sees the opening of the second phase of ticket sales for the Games, as thousands of tickets remaining for sports such as rugby sevens, badminton, hockey and weight-lifting are released, with those who missed out in the first phase given priority when sales open on Monday.
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