The baton is due to arrive at Cardiff Airport on Saturday May 24 and visit seven different local authority areas in Wales over the course of the week, including Blaenau Gwent, Rhondda Cynon Taff, the Urdd Eisteddfod in Bala, Carmarthenshire, Pembrokeshire, Anglesey, and Gwynedd before finishing up in Denbighshire on Friday May 30.

"We all witnessed the sheer number of people getting behind the London 2012 Torch Relay as it made its way through Wales ahead of the Olympic Games, and we're looking forward to seeing the Welsh support for our athletes at the Queen's Baton Relay events next year," said Chris Jenkins, chief executive of the Commonwealth Games Council of Wales (CGCW). 

"We're such a proud and passionate sporting nation and the seven days next summer, just two months out from the start of the Glasgow 2014 Games, will provide us with the chance to travel across Wales, engaging with communities, building excitement for the Games and gathering support for the team along the way.

"Taking each days support and adding it to the next so that we build a huge wave of support for the Welsh athletes in Glasgow, one team all of Wales.

"The Commonwealth Games is the only opportunity that Wales gets to compete as a nation, the only chance that many athletes have to pull on a Welsh vest and because of that it holds such importance for us.

"And it's not only the Games and the competition events that have the power to ignite that spark within our future sporting generation, the Queen's Baton Relay will directly involve and inspire the young people of Wales."


The Queen's Baton Relay has special significance in Wales as it was the Cardiff Games of 1958 that saw the first relay taking place, when Queen Elizabeth II handed a specially designed baton to a series of runners at Buckingham Palace, who carried it to the Welsh capital before a message from the Queen was read out at the Opening Ceremony.

That tradition has been maintained for every Games since, except for Perth 1962, and has seen the Baton travel the length and breadth of the Commonwealth nations in the build-up to each event and prior to Melbourne 2006 and Delhi 2010, it visited every country in the Commonwealth for the first time.

For Glasgow 2014 the baton is set to make its third consecutive journey to every Commonwealth nation prior to arriving in Scotland in time for the Opening Ceremony on July 23 and this time round it will cover some 190,000 kilometres starting in Asia before moving onto Oceania, Africa, South America, the Caribbean and North America before returning to Europe.

In all, the relay will last 288 days, and during its visit to Wales the CGCW hope the Queen's Baton Relay will encourage the Welsh people to come out and embrace the ideals of the Commonwealth Games and show support for the athletes, including world 400m hurdles champion and defending Commonwealth Games champion Dai Greene (pictured top), who hopes to compete at Glasgow 2014.


"We are a nation who are very proud of our sporting achievements and the Commonwealth Games is a very important event which attracts worldwide interest," said John Griffiths, Minister for Culture and Sport in Wales.

"Our top Welsh athletes, supported by their coaches and support staff work very hard to compete in the Games and we constantly see new records broken and very high standards set on the world stage which illustrate that to represent your country at any level is a first class achievement.

"I am looking forward to seeing the Queen's Baton Relay travelling through Wales which will involve many of our local communities.

"I am sure the event will generate a great deal of support and excitement and will help young people in particular to understand that sport can have so many wide ranging benefits. "

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