The Queen's Baton

As football fans, officials, and players have all eyes on the June-July world cup, many other SA athletes are focused on October 2010.

Then New Delhi will host the Commonwealth Games.

Now, what I didn't know till a few days ago, and witnessed it up close yesterday, is that before every Commonwealth Games a so called Queen's Baton is touring the more than 70 Commonwealth nations. It's a bit like the Olympic Flame....

So over the last day this baton toured SA (Durban, Cape Town, Bloemfontein) and yesterday it was Gauteng's turn. The baton went to Ekurhuleni, then to Soweto, followed by SAFA House next to the beautiful Soccer City, to end up at the Olympic House somewhere in Johannesburg (I think it was near Houghton). Today the baton will continue its journey to Lesotho and onwards.

So as Bafana Bafana is trying to find the space between the 2 goalposts, SA's swimmers are in the pool testing their speeds, boxers are trying new gloves, runners are puting their spikes in new tracks, and so on and on. So lots of sweat outside the football pitch too.