Sebastian Coe the chairman of London 2012, is to join Dame Kelly Holmes, Susan Gilroy and Monty Panasar in the Queen's Baton Relay, which will help launch next year's Commonwealth Games in New Delhi and starts at Buckingham Palace on Thursday, it was announced today. 

Ironically, lack of success in the Commonwealth Games was the only real blot on Coe's athletics CV, which included four Olympic medals, two of them gold.

But the Commonwealth Games always seemed to coincide with him being injured or preparing for a bigger event and he never won a medal.

His final appearance in a major international event came at the Commonwealth Games when he finished sixth in the 800m at Auckland in 1990 when he was suffering from a chest infection.

As revealed by insidethegames last month, Panasar has been chosen to take part because he was the first Sikh cricketer to represent England.

Dame Kelly, a double gold Olympic medalist and now President of Commonwealth Games England won the 1500 metres at the Commonwealth Games in 1994 and 2002, and Susan Gilroy, a two-time Commonwealth Games wheelchair table tennis champion, will also be among the baton-bearers.

Commonwealth Games Federation President Michael Fennell will take the baton from the plinth and pass it on to Queen Elizabeth II who, in turn, will hand it over to Indian President Pratibha Patil in the Buckingham Palace.

The President of India will pass on the baton to India's Sports Minister M. S. Gill before it reaches Suresh Kalmadi, the chairman of the local organising committee.

From Kalmadi, the baton will go to Abhinav Bindra, the first Indian to win an individual gold medal when he won the Olympic shooting title in Beijing last year.

Besides Bindra, Olympic bronze medallists Sushil Kumar, Vijender Singh, 1958 Commonwealth Games gold medallist Milkha Singh, 1983 cricket World Cup winning captain Kapil Dev, badminton legend Prakash Padukone, former hockey national team captain Dilip Tirkey and top Indian tennis player Sania Mirza will be the other Baton bearers.

The baton will travel for 240 days internationally to all the Commonwealth countries and territories in which it will cover a distance of 1,70,000 kms before entering India on June 25 through Wagah border.

After the Baton arrives in India, it will travel across the length and breadth of the country and will reach the Capital, which is to host the quadrennial event, in October next year.

The Baton will travel 20,000km in India, which is the maximum distance that has been ever covered in the host country.

Kalmadi said: "The Baton will travel 27 states and seven Union Territories and the distance is double to what was covered during the [2002] Manchester and [2006] Melbourne Games."