Prince Harry is game for Rio beach volleyball on Jubilee tour

 
Prince Harry: Will take in the sights of Rio on his tour
13 April 2012

Prince Harry will meet Olympic champion sprinter Usain Bolt in Jamaica and play beach volleyball in Rio on his first foreign tour representing the Queen.

Aides today said Harry was "really bouncing" at the prospect of visiting Central America, the Caribbean and Brazil to mark the Diamond Jubilee.
He will go to Belize, the Bahamas, Jamaica and finally Brazil, where, on Sugarloaf mountain in Rio he will launch the Great campaign, which will use the Diamond Jubilee and London Olympics to promote the UK as a place to visit, study and work.

His private secretary Jamie Lowther Pinkerton said: "Prince Harry is really bouncing about this tour. He is hugely, hugely looking forward to it."
He said the tour of the three realms "was personally chosen for Prince Harry by Her Majesty, who has visited the countries many times during her reign". He added: "I think the volleyball he will be taking part in isn't mixed. I have yet to tell him about that."

Harry plans to meet triple Olympic champion sprinter Bolt at the track in Kingston that is named after him. Last month the new Jamaican prime minister, Portia Simpson Miller, vowed to drop the Queen as head of state and turn the country into a republic. Mr Lowther Pinkerton said of Harry's visit: "He is taking the good wishes of the Queen of Jamaica to the Jamaican people as it stands at the moment."

The Queen's grandson, 27, third in line to the throne, will then fly to Brazil at the Government's request to boost trade links with one of the four leading developing economies and play in a polo match on behalf of his charity, Sentebale.

After three days of official duties in the state of Sao Paulo and in Rio de Janeiro - which is hosting the 2016 Olympics - Harry will stay on privately in Brazil until March 14.

His tour begins on March 2 in Belize, and will be followed by visits to New Providence Island in the Bahamas and Kingston and Falmouth in Jamaica.
Harry, who as Captain Wales is an Army Apache attack helicopter pilot, is expected to return to the front line in Afghanistan this year.

He is not the first of the royals to begin tours to mark the Diamond Jubilee. The Earl and Countess of Wessex will start a 17-day tour of other Caribbean islands, including Antigua, Barbados, Grenada and Trinidad and Tobago on February 21, and will also visit Gibraltar.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will visit Tuvalu, a collection of South Pacific islands this year.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in