Scouts start cycling relay to Japan

Polish scouts outside the Japanese Embassy in Warsaw on the first day of a cycling relay to Yamaguchi. Photo: PAP/Leszek Szymanski

The cyclists set out from the ZHP headquarters in Warsaw, before making a swift stop at the Japanese Embassy.

The relay, which takes in over 12,000 kilometres across Turkey, Central Asia and China, has been divided into nine stages.

Contestants have taken up the challenge as part of a wider initiative named 'Be the Spark,' the aim of which is to promote Poland as well as to highlight plans for ZHP to host the 25th World Scout Jamboree in 2023.

As many as 30,000 scouts from across the globe are expected to descend on Yamuguchi for the 23rd World Scout Jamboree, which begins in late July.

Poland's scouts are currently divided into two organisations, ZHP and ZHR. The latter split from the former during the 1989 collapse of communism, claiming that ZHR would be truer to pre-war ideals.

Polish scouts have also operated in the UK since the aftermath of the Second World War, when thousands of Poles settled in Britain. One of the former Scoutmasters was Ryszard Kaczorowski (d. 2010), who was the last president of the government-in-exile in London. (nh)

Source: PAP