The T&T Com­mon­wealth Games As­so­ci­a­tion (TTC­GA), on Mon­day, re­vealed the of­fi­cial de­sign for the King’s Ba­ton Re­lay, an in­te­gral sym­bol of the Com­mon­wealth Games.

The Ba­ton has been con­cep­tu­alised and de­signed by renowned Cre­ative/Art Di­rec­tor, Ken­neth Hen­ry.

Known for his ex­cep­tion­al artis­tic abil­i­ties, Hen­ry's de­sign beau­ti­ful­ly en­cap­su­lates the essence of T&T, il­lus­trat­ing the coun­try's vi­brant cul­ture, rich his­to­ry, and nat­ur­al beau­ty.

The de­sign fea­tures stylised graph­ic il­lus­tra­tions that sym­bol­ise the jour­ney of the Ba­ton as it trav­els be­tween the is­lands, touch­ing the many re­silient and beau­ti­ful facets of T&T. The flow­ing, dy­nam­ic colour shapes rep­re­sent the twists and turns of the re­lay, high­light­ing the coun­try's eco­log­i­cal di­ver­si­ty, cul­tur­al her­itage, and his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance. From the icon­ic Trin­i­ty Hills and the del­i­cate brain coral to the ever-present hum­ming­bird, Mr. Hen­ry has art­ful­ly de­pict­ed the land­marks and sym­bols that make this twinis­land na­tion unique.

King’s Ba­ton’s de­sign al­so ho­n­ours the com­mit­ment and ded­i­ca­tion of the is­land's ath­letes. Sport­ing fig­ures in­te­grat­ed in­to the art­work serve as a small but pow­er­ful re­minder of the many in­di­vid­u­als who rep­re­sent T&T in the sport­ing world, hail­ing from all cor­ners of the na­tion.

The art­work was brought to life by Artist Michael Phillips, a for­mer three-time Com­mon­wealth Games cy­clist for TeamT­TO. Phillips, who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the 1994, 1998, and 2002 Com­mon­wealth Games and proud­ly served as flag bear­er for the 1998 Games, is al­so an ex­hibit­ing artist. Since 1994, he has sup­port­ed his cy­cling ca­reer and the re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion of T&T's cy­cling sport through the pro­ceeds from his art­work.

Be­yond his artis­tic con­tri­bu­tions, Phillips is an in­flu­en­tial fig­ure in T&T's sports com­mu­ni­ty.

He has served on nu­mer­ous ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tees, in­clud­ing the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) and the T&T Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion (TTCF), and was the Chair­man of the Sport Com­pa­ny of T&T (SPORTT). Phillips is a two-time re­cip­i­ent of the TTOC's pres­ti­gious Alexan­der B. Chap­man Award. His tire­less work as a sport pro­mot­er, mo­ti­va­tion­al speak­er, and per­form­ing mu­si­cian con­tin­ues to in­spire many.

In recog­ni­tion of his ex­tra­or­di­nary con­tri­bu­tions to both sport and com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment, Phillips was award­ed the Hum­ming­bird Medal Gold by the Re­pub­lic of T&T in 2024.

Pres­i­dent, Di­ane Hen­der­son stat­ed, “The King’s Ba­ton Re­lay serves as a pow­er­ful sym­bol of uni­ty, cel­e­brat­ing the di­verse cul­tures and shared val­ues of the Com­mon­wealth, con­nect­ing 74 coun­tries ‘more in com­mon’. T&T’s de­sign is a re­flec­tion of this spir­it, bring­ing to­geth­er the coun­try’s his­to­ry, cul­ture, and ath­letes in a tru­ly re­mark­able way”.

To­ba­go based TTC­GA Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al, An­nette Knott added, “the con­cepts high­light­ed tru­ly bring out the two is­lands in their rev­er­ent beau­ty, in­clu­sive of their dif­fer­ences to­geth­er as one. We look for­ward to an ex­cit­ing week of ba­ton ex­changes, ath­letes and stu­dents.”

TTC­GA will be of­fi­cial­ly launch­ing the dis­play of the de­sign of the King’s Ba­ton at a pri­vate re­cep­tion at the British High Com­mis­sion’s Res­i­dence on Tues­day 11th March at 5:30pm