TOP 10 WELSH SPORTING MOMENTS
1 JOE CALZAGHE Madison Square Garden, New York, November 2008.
A career as close to perfection as any, finished off by scoring a unanimous points win over Roy Jones Jnr. With nobody left to beat, the Newbridge southpaw called it quits, leaving a spotless record of 46 fights, 46 wins — including 21 defences of his world super-middleweight title over 10 years.
2 GERAINT THOMAS Champs-Elysees, Paris, July 2018
The ‘skinny kid’ from Maindy Flyers Cycling Club, renowned as the ultimate team man, is now the ultimate champion — due reward for his unfailing knack of making molehills out of mountains. A monumental triumph and proof nice guys don’t always finish second.
3 NICOLE COOKE Beijing, China, August 2008
Achieved a unique double in cycling as the first road racer of any nationality to win Olympic gold and break the world record in the same year. Her fearless campaigning against drugs has won her countless new admirers since retiring at the age of 29.
4 LYNN DAVIES Tokyo, October 1964
In pelting rain and gusting winds, the 21-year- old student from Nantymoel beat the hottest of long jump favourites, Ralph Boston, into third place. The next day an even more revered American Olympian, Jesse Owens, shook Davies by the hand for the first — and so far only — track and field gold won by a Welshman.
5 IAN WOOSNAM Augusta, USA, April 1991
Eleven Masters champions made the cut, including Seve Ballesteros, Nick Faldo, Tom Watson, Bernhard Langer and Jack Nicklaus. The farmer’s boy from Llanymynech, who grew up wanting to be a boxer, beat them all. A quarter of a century later he is still the only Welsh golfer to win a major.
6 PAOLO RADMILOVIC Antwerp, August 1920
Born to a Croatian father and Welsh-Irish mother in Tiger Bay, he rose from Cardiff’s booming dockland to win Olympic titles in the swimming pool on a serial scale. The first Brit to compete in five successive Games, he was the first to win four golds — only eclipsed by Sir Steve Redgrave in Sydney 80 years on.
7 BARRY JOHN New Zealand, June-August 1971
No British or Irish rugby player has ever tormented the All Blacks the way the imperious Welsh fly-half did on behalf of the only Lions team to win a Test series in New Zealand. As the untouchable ringmaster of an almost all-Welsh back line, John left the Kiwis no option but to bend a collective knee and call him ‘The King’. They still do.
8 GARETH BALE Kiev, May 2018
His airborne strike shattered Liverpool’s dream of winning the Champions League, a reminder that Cristiano Ronaldo no longer has a monopoly on outrageous goals.
9 JADE JONES Rio de Janeiro, August 2016
No Welshman or woman had ever won backto-back Olympic golds until the girl from Bodelwyddan retained the taekwondo title she had won in London four years earlier. Nobody will bet against a hat-trick for ‘The Headhunter’ in Tokyo.
10 STEVE JONES Chicago, USA, April 1985
An aircraft technician from Ebbw Vale, Jones took British endurance running to new levels. In the mid-80s, he won the London marathon once and Chicago twice, the second in a world-record time of 2hr 7min 3sec. No Briton beat it until Mo Farah three months ago.