‘Celebrity SAS gave me renewed belief’ – Aled Davies
WELSH Paralympic champion Aled Davies – fresh from winning one of the toughest reality TV shows, Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins – has described how the show has given him renewed self-belief.
The 30-year-old, from Bridgend, was born with hemimelia of the right leg, causing serious knee instability, and is a Paralympic icon for Wales, winning gold for shot-put in the 2016 and 2020 Paralympic Games and also winning gold for discus in the 2012 Paralympic Games.
In the final episode, he was told he had “passed” the gruelling Channel 4 show. Aled explained that he didn’t take part to be an inspiration for anyone else, but to prove to himself that he could do it. He said: “When hen I was younger I was told that I couldn’t ouldn’t go in the Army and do things because of my disability, so for me, it was as never a debate on whether take the e opportunity. It was exciting to try and do myself justice, I wanted to show people what I could do.”
Aled added he will never ver throw in the towel and just st keep going until he achieves es what he wants.
“I will do everything I can n do, pretty much do everyything,” he said. “It might ht take me a bit longer to figure re it out, a bit longer to do it but you know I will never throw w in the towel. I’ll keep going and going and going. And I really wanted people to see that t side of me because I’ve always been en one of those athletes that work hard ard and I don’t really put out there.
“It’s never my aim to inspire, i i’ it’s not something that I wake up in the morning and go ‘I want to inspire people’, all I wanted to be portrayed as an elite athlete, but I have a disability within Paralympic sport. That is the kind of opinion I’ve been chasing my whole life.”
In the show, he abseiled and ran down cliff faces, rescued hostages, and survived the final task of the gruelling interrogation where the celebrities were played babies screaming, animals being slaughtered and nails on a chalkboard on loop.
Labeling the interrogations as one of the toughest parts, Aled said: “It is slow torture, it really is slow torture, it is unbearable... I remember being against the wall and feeling the wall in front of me. There were little crevices on the wall and for some reason I remember thinking ‘I am a cowboy jumping around’.”
One of Aled’s highlights from the show was learning and experiencing working in a team, compared to his professional career of the solo sports of shot-put and discus.
He explained: “I didn’t realise how much I loved working with the team and how much I enjoyed working k with h the h team.” ”
Aled also admitted that he underestimated just how tough and intense the show was going to be, both physically and mentally.
He described the experience as a different world to normal life: “It was really was an incredible world that that we stepped into for the seven, eight days... I bought into the show, I bought into the experience, I bought into the course and I loved every single second of it in a kind of really weird, painful kind of way.
“Yeah, it really was brutal. It was a different kind of challenge.”
None of the ex-SAS staff on the show were putting on a show or acting tough for cameras, Aled explained, as he told how the celebrities were put through their paces.
He said: “Then all of a sudden, the staff turn up and they are not pleasant. For the first few days they are seriously unpleasant they’re trying to get you to switch on... And it’s really overwhelming at first.
“For me, my biggest Kryptonite was the terrain. One minute you’re jogging on the side of a mountain and then I’m down with my unstable leg. I think I must have easily broken the record for the amount of falls anyone’s ever done. I think I spent more time slipping around more than anyone else ever.”
Throughout Through the process, Aled lost seven kilos kilo in weight as he pushed his body to t the maximum like never before and a he would recommend the exp experience to others.
Ov Overall Aled took from the show sho a renewed and a stronger str sense of self-belief, pushing pu him forward for the Tokyo Olympics earlier this year where he won gold.
He said: “I learned how much I used to doubt myself or question myself, I think th now it has made me realise rea that you can do pretty much mu anything you set your mind to.
“Wh “What I came away with is a lot of belief be and hunger to be back training, i it made me want to get back straig straight into it, I literally came back and I was ready to train.
“So, “yeah, I definitely learned a lot. For me it was a bit more of a self-belief, I questioned myself at times of the year, even when I am number one in the world of what I do I still question, can I do it when it matters.
“But after the show, training, and actually go into Tokyo with so many things against me and still execute a performance and come home with a gold. I think it speaks for itself.”
■ All episodes of Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins are available on Channel 4’s on-demand service All 4