Welsh greats
Geraint Thomas’ success in the Tour de France highlighted once again that despite being a nation of just over three million, Wales produces its fair share of great athletes.
Here AFP Sports picks out four memorable sporting achievements by Welsh athletes:
Joe Calzaghe
Boxer known as “The Pride of Wales” – although born in London – his family moved to Wales when he was two. Trained by his Italian father Enzo he would retire in 2009 with an unblemished record of 46 wins in 46 bouts and as the undisputed super-middleweight world champion – he held the WBO version for almost 11 years – and was The Ring’s world light heavyweight champion, beating two legends in Bernard Hopkins and then defending it against Roy Jones Jr. Impressively, he fought both in the US and was floored in the first round in each bout only to come back and win. “There are no more mountains left to climb,” said Calzaghe when he retired.
Jade Jones
Known as “The Headhunter”, Jones (right) won two Olympic taekwondo gold medals in 2012 and 2016. “To be a double Olympic champion seems surreal,” said the engaging Welsh girl from the town of Bodelwyddan in North Wales. She will be eternally grateful to her grandfather Martin Foulkes when, only eight, he said taekwondo would be excellent for self-defence and by her own admission she was getting to be a “bit naughty”. She is targeting a third Olympic gold in Tokyo in 2020.
Lynn Davies
He certainly earned the nickname “Lynn the Leap” when aged just 22 he won the Olympic long jump gold medal in Tokyo in 1964. Competing in pouring rain, Davies (above) – who had only taken up the event when he moved to Cardiff from his village of Nantymoel – held his own against the then world record holder and 1960 champion Ralph Boston of the United States and the former record holder, the Soviet Union’s Igor TerOvanesyan. Davies was in bronze medal position before seizing the lead with his penultimate jump of 8.07m and neither of his rivals were able to pass him. He remains the only Welsh athlete to have won track or field Olympic gold. “The Welsh gods were looking over the stadium because it was truly Welsh weather,” he recalled years later.
Ian Woosnam
Golfer Woosnam (right) won the 1991 Masters in Augusta. Part of a golden generation – Seve Ballesteros, Bernard Langer, Sandy Lyle and Faldo – Woosnam, 33, became the first Welshman to win a Major. The world No 1 arrived at the final hole tied with Tom Watson and Jose Maria Olazabal, who was in the pair ahead but who bogeyed the 18th to fall back. Watson then double-bogeyed and Woosnam made par as he sealed victory.