LAHORE, Oct 18: An impressive ceremony to mark the arrival of the Queen’s Baton for the 2014 Commonwealth Games was held under the auspices of the retired Lt Gen Arif Hasan-led Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) here on Thursday.

After a three-day stay here in Lahore, the Queen’s Baton delegation was scheduled to leave Lahore for Colombo, Sri Lanka in the wee hours of Saturday.

A nine-member delegation, headed by the Games’ organising secretary Mrs Luise Martin, is carrying the baton. The delegation’s visit is part of Queen’s Baton relay around the world in the lead-up to the Commonwealth Games. The baton had reached Lahore from Dhaka on Wednesday. The Games are scheduled to be held in July in Glasgow.

During its stay, the baton was handed over by Martin to POA president retired Lt Gen Arif Hasan in a function held at a local hotel on Thursday.

The function was also attended by a good number of national and international sportspersons. Prominent among them were international wrestler Inam Butt, weightlifter Abdul Ghafoor, swimmer Kiran Khan, karatekas Beenish and Qurtaulain, besides Kiramat Butt and Yousuf Riaz. No hockey player attended the function, mainly because the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) supporting the government does not recognise Arif-led POA.

After receiving the baton from Martin, Arif handed it to players, who took turns before returning it to the organising secretary. Earlier in the morning, in a simple ceremony the baton was also taken to the historic site of Minar-i-Pakistan.

Surprisingly, the government did not show any solidarity with the POA as no dignitary was present at the ceremony. Earlier, Punjab Governor Chaudhry Mohammad Sarwar was ready to attend the function but later government-formed POA officials persuaded him not to attend.

However, Arif-headed POA successfully made all the arrangements for the function.

Meanwhile, according to a press release issued by the POA stated: “The Queen’s Baton is a prestigious affair in which the Ministry of Inter-provincial Coordination (IPC) and Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) did not participate owing to its controversial backing [of rival POA group], of a counterfeit organisation illegitimately created by its federal sporting bureaucracy. The Queen’s Baton was here as part of the 190,000km journey which makes whistle-stops in 70 countries and territories in all five continents over 248 days in a celebration of sport, diversity and peace, culminating at Glasgow at the opening ceremony of the prestigious Games on July 23, 2014.

“Despite the handicap of non-participation by the government as a partner the event went off very well and was covered live and extensively by BBC. By non-participation the Pakistan government thus lost a great opportunity to present the soft, sporting image of the country across the globe in a significant manner,” the POA press release added.

“The conspicuous absence of Syed Shahid Ali, the IOC member in Pakistan, was another aspect noticed by all,” it further added.

“Due to the POA efforts, Pakistan nonetheless is featuring very prominently in a documentary that is being made by the BBC.

“The QBR was taken to Minar-i-Pakistan, Badshahi Masjid and Lahore Fort, and was afterwards carried on a tour of the city,” the press release highlighted.

“A very poignant moment came when during the speech at the ceremony Mrs Louise Martin, honorary secretary general of the Commonwealth Games Federation and vice chair of the organising committee of the Games in her address spoke a few lines in Urdu: “Meri dua he ke Pakistani sportspersons aur youth Glasgow games mein kamyab houn”. Her thoughtfulness was much appreciated by the audience,” it stated.

Gen Arif, in his capacity as president of the Commonwealth Games Association, Pakistan as well as POA president addressed the ceremony.

“The city of Lahore welcomes the Queen’s Baton. The Glasgow Games 2014 have a special significance for Lahore. Although separated by thousands of miles, the links between the two cities are strong, as many thousands of British Pakistanis live and work in Glasgow,” he said.

“These strong links were further cemented when Lahore and Glasgow officially became sister cities in 2006. It is for this reason that we chose the city of Lahore for the QBR.

“The Lahoreites want to build on these links further by inviting Glaswegians through the QBR to be a part of the spirit of Lahore,” Arif said.

The ceremony was attended by a large number of Pakistani origin people and businessmen from Glasgow, including Hamza Yousuf, who happens to be government of Scotland’s minister for external affairs and international development.