King’s Baton Reaches Belize Ahead of Glasgow 2026 Games

The King’s Baton Relay arrived in Belize on Monday with the unveiling of Belize’s specially painted baton. For the first time, all seventy-four Commonwealth nations and territories have received their own customizable baton for the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games. As part of today’s activities, a relay run made its way to the Baron Bliss Lighthouse, with participation from students of Saint Catherine Academy. The event also included an ocean clean-up campaign along the seawall, led by the school’s Oceana Wavemakers Club. Belize Olympic and Commonwealth Games Association board member Leticia Westby explained the significance of the day’s events and shared details behind the design of Belize’s King’s Baton.

 

Leticia Westby, Belize Olympic Association

“We’re going to be doing a relay with the high school including a Clean Ocean campaign and cleanup, where we’ll be cleaning, having the students clean from the lighthouse to St. Catherine’s area. The idea is basically to pick up all the plastics to try to ensure that the oceans remains for us in the future. The baton was a blank baton that was given to each country this year. And we were asked to design, make a design of the baton, including our culture, heritage, sports, and sustainability. So we had commissioned Mr. Keion Griffith to do this for us, design and paint the baton. So if you look at the baton, we’re starting out with the flag that represent the country. We go to the Blue Hole, which is a UNESCO World Heritage cite that we have here. Also taken to the idea of the– or the concept of the Clean Ocean Campaign. If we keep the ocean or our waters clean, this can remain for years to come. And of course, we have the Mayan temple– or Mayan ruins which is something for us, unique. We are one of the only Commonwealth country that has the ancient Mayan, the heritage and the culture of the Mayan because as part of the baton, we are featured in the Pok-ta-Pok on our baton. The Mayans have been in Belize or have been in the side of the world from before Christ and they still remain and we are still playing the game of Pok-ta-Pok. Belize is, I think, or was the world champion a couple years back.”

 

As part of the week’s activities, organizers will also host a Pok-ta-Pok game at the Jardin Pachamama Field on Friday.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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