The Queen's Baton Relay has passed through Greater Manchester this weekend to mark the upcoming Commonwealth Games, stopping off at the grassroots home of one of the newest sports being featured in the competition.
With just 11 days to go until more than 5,000 athletes from 72 Commonwealth nations compete in the 2022 games in Birmingham, the prestigious Queen's Baton Relay is on its final leg, having toured through a number of Commonwealth countries over the last few months, including Singapore, Mauritius, and Canada.
The baton, which contains a message from the Queen that's going to be read out at the Games' opening ceremony, first came to London for five days in June as part of the Platinum Jubilee celebrations, before jetting off to the Falkland Islands. It left the South Atlantic for the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, before touring Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales and returning back to England on July 4 for a final 25-day tour of the nation.
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This weekend the baton was in Greater Manchester, visiting Bolton, Salford, Stockport, and Wigan before heading off to Knowsley. On Sunday morning, the baton headed to Belle Vue Leisure Centre to mark the sport of basketball ahead of the competition. As well as being a legacy venue from the Manchester Commonwealth Games in 2002, Belle Vue Sports Village is a key site for 3x3 basketball, one of the newest sports being featured in the competition.
The National Basketball Performance Centre is the home of Ball Out, a grassroots organisation for 3x3 basketball which uses just half the court, with three players on each team trying to score through the same hoop as their opponents. It's a vital site for the sport, with Ball Out founder Julius Joseph being selected to coach the England Men's 3x3 Commonwealth team this summer.
Julius was on site at the centre on Sunday morning, July 17, where a 3x3 basketball tournament was being held, to receive the baton from bearer Tracey Szymanek, a community champion from Middleton who had been selected as one of the baton bearers. Although he didn't formally carry the baton, he was there with Tracey to mark the prestigious item reaching Belle Vue Sports Village, before it headed back onto the road to hit its next stop.
Having started the Ball Out project with a friend in 2012, when the pair simply headed down to their local park to offer basketball sessions for kids, Julius has grown the scheme over the years into a thriving scene for 3x3 basketball - with the tournament being held on Sunday having almost 100 teams participating across all of the categories, including men's, women's, and wheelchair.
These national tournaments helped Julius select the squad, with a few of the players having taken part in Ball Out events previously, whilst others were selected from training camps. Speaking after the relay, Julius said: "That was a milestone, really exciting to have something of such importance come to our event. We've been pioneering 3x3 for eight years and year on year interest has grown.
"To have the baton, such a prestigious item, at our event, it's really something to show appreciation for the work we've put into this. We founded this back in 2012 from very humble beginnings, just two of us going to the park to so some basketball for the kids, and each year it's grown.
"It's absolutely amazing, so excited it's going to be such an incredible year for myself and 3x3. I'm really excited and looking forward to having the support of our country. There's a buzz about 3x3 at the moment, it's a new exciting adaptation to basketball and as it's so new it's a great opportunity for a team to have success on a global stage.
"A couple of the players played in Ball Out so it's good to show the opportunity is there to represent your country if you play in these tournaments and succeed. The guys understand the task and the challenge that awaits them and we're all looking forward to it. We've done a lot of preparation and work to be ready for the competition."
This year will be the first time 3x3 basketball is played at the Commonwealth Games, although a 5x5 version of the game was played twice in the competition, first in Melbourne in 2006 and again on the Gold Coast in 2018. The game is played with teams of three, plus one substitute, with shots scored from inside the arc-shaped scoring zone worth one point whilst shots taken from behind the arc are worth two.
The game ends when one team reached 21 points, or after ten minutes where the leading team claims the victory. The baton came to Belle Vue from MediaCity, where it was carried along by former Paralympic swimmer Ellie Simmonds, weather presenter Owain Wyn Evans, and singer and presenter Jsky, who ran his stretch in heels.
The trio took the baton around the quays, heading over the MediaCity footbridge where the first change took place, before running down past the Imperial War Museum and back over the Millennium bridge for the second change in front of The Lowry. It then made its way back over towards the piazza before the baton was whisked off to Manchester city centre to Sport City, where cycling was celebrated.
Bolton was the first part of Greater Manchester to welcome the baton, after it made its way down to the region on Saturday night from Carlisle and the Lake District, arriving in the town for a relay at around 7pm yesterday evening. Pat Fitzgerald, vice president of Bury Relics Walking Football Club, a community club founded for people over 50 which now has four teams, took part in the relay, after being nominated by a fellow player.
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