The Commonwealth royal who struggled to open the Queen’s baton during Wednesday’s ceremony injured his thumb in his unscripted wrestle.
Malaysia’s Prince Imran, who is president of the Commonwealth Games Federation, was handed the baton by Sir Chris Hoy and tasked with opening it up to retrieve a message to pass on to the Queen.
But in a heart-stopping moment, he struggled to get the lid open and Sir Chris stepped in to help before he finally succeeded but his efforts came at a price.
“There was a little bit of collateral damage,” he told reporters. “I cut my thumb on a piece of Scottish engineering but it was my fault nothing to do with the makers of the baton.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=q0morUfC5sk%3Frel%3D0
“I’m not sure that Chris Hoy helped by closing the thing as he was trying to help me but anyway, all’s well that ends well.”
The prince said he had practised opening the baton “two or three times” but blamed his mishap on the baton being held “too high”.
He said: “I had practised. It was actually a bit higher. You open the thing and there’s a button you need to press. Because the baton was a bit higher than it was (when I practised), I was having a problem pushing the button down. It was my fault.
“I knew exactly what to do. It was not the fault of the baton. I raised a laugh and that’s what it’s all about isn’t it?”
He added: “I actually just saw it on television just before coming in here I hadn’t seen it and even I laughed at it. It was a great comedy act!”
The Queen laughed off the prince’s struggled, as did the 40,000 spectators, and there were cheers when the baton was finally opened.