IT won’t be visiting Bathurst when it travels through central NSW next year, but the Commonwealth Games Queen’s Baton still has a local link.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
That link is former Bathurst boy Alex Wall, who was part of the group that designed the baton that will travel around the world before the sporting extravaganza starts on the Gold Coast in 2018.
Mr Wall, who was born in Bathurst and spent the first part of his childhood in the city, is creative director at Designworks in Brisbane, which won a public tender in November last year to create the distinctive baton.
As Mr Wall explained, the baton had to have a story – or stories – to tell as it travelled across the globe.
“We could make it a nice, pretty object, but it had to be more than that,” he said.
Spending time on the Gold Coast gave Mr Wall and the Designworks team a chance to take the pulse of the sixth-largest city in Australia.
And the core theme they came up with was “boundless energy”.
“There was vibrant energy, relaxed energy, youthful energy, all sorts of energy,” Mr Wall said.
The locals they spoke to expressed “pure happiness” about their home, he said, and that was also soaked up by the design team.
“They truly believe that they live in the best place in the entire world,” he said.
Fourteen concepts for the baton were whittled down in consultation with GOLDOC, the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games Corporation, until the final design was chosen.
The final baton includes macadamia wood on the back (the macadamia tree is native to the Gold Coast, and its nuts were used by indigenous groups); a stainless steel stringer (a structural element borrowed from surfboards) in the centre that will create a reflection of its surrounds; the laser-engraved alpha codes of all the countries and territories of the Commonwealth; and reclaimed plastic in the leading edge.
Mr Wall said Designworks had been involved in high volume manufacturing in the past, but the baton project was unique in that it is estimated that 1.5 billion people will see the final product.
The Queen’s Baton will start its journey in Australia in Canberra on January 25, 2018.
Carcoar’s Kurt Fearnley was one of those chosen to be part of the baton launch at Buckingham Palace earlier this month.
