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13/09/2024 00:00, In Blog /

Eight Welsh athletes experienced the full spectrum of emotions during an enthralling and unforgettable summer of Olympic and Paralympic sport in Paris.

The magnificent Stade de France and historic streets of the French capital witnessed the unrestrained joy of a Welsh world record and three medals, as well as tears of disappointment as hopes were dashed - sometimes by the narrowest of margins.

No athlete experienced those highs and lows more intensely than the first of the Welsh contingent to take the stage – Cardiff Athletics’ Jeremiah Azu, who contested the men’s 100m and 4x100m at the Olympic Games.

The young sprinter was full of anticipation and excitement as he lined up to make his Olympic debut in the 100m heats on a beautiful, sun-drenched Parisian August morning.

However, Azu’s individual campaign on sport’s biggest stage was over just the tiniest fraction of a second after it had begun on the bang of the starter’s pistol.

Wales’ fastest man was adjudged to have jumped the gun and was picked out of the field as the cause of a false start.

It was heartbreaking to watch the 23-year-old pleading his innocence in vain to the officials before eventually having to accept his fate.

However, the resilience of his character shone through shortly afterwards as he showed remarkable composure to face the world’s media.

And that character stood him in good stead as he bounced back just a few days later taking on the responsibility of leading out the Great Britain 4x100m relay team in their semi-final.

There were no false starts this time as Azu blasted out of the blocks to send GB on their way to the following night’s final.

And he repeated the feat at a packed Stade de France where he led the team to bronze, thus becoming the first Welsh track athlete to win an Olympic medal for 28 years.

Photo: Jeremiah Azu celebrating with his teammates after winning a bronze medal.

Azu shared after the race:

The champs didn’t start great for me so to leave with something is amazing, we wouldn’t be in this position without each other, we trust each other.

 

The guys put their trust in me to start us off again and it paid off. So, thank you to you guys.”

If Azu’s fortunes changed within the space of a week, so did the life of endurance athlete Clara Evans.

The Pontypridd Roadents athlete was at home in Wales preparing for her upcoming wedding when she answered the call from the Great Britain selectors to replace the injured Charlotte Purdue in the women’s marathon, which was just eight days away.

Evans put her wedding arrangements on hold to dash off to Paris and prepare for the biggest race of her career so far.

The Welsh record holder ran one of the races of her life on one of the toughest championship courses in history.

Evans finished as the highest placed British athlete in 46^th place out of the 80 finishers who survived the course and high temperatures, clocking a time of 2:33.01 in a race won by the remarkable Sifan Hassan.

Photo: Clara Evans celebrating with Fiancé Paul holding the Welsh flag after the marathon. 

An emotional Clara shared:

It was hard and it was hot – I wanted to stay strong for as long as possible.

 

I only got called up last weekend, so to come first Brit makes me really proud of myself.

 

I wasn’t expecting it – I was preparing for my wedding and getting married on Saturday, so it’s been a crazy couple of weeks.

 

I was really emotional and really happy.

 

I just never thought I could ever make an Olympics ever – I didn’t think I was good enough so I’m happy to do myself proud”

If the Olympics thought they had provided Welsh athletes with an emotional rollercoaster, the Paralympics were lying in wait to offer to hold their beer.

Azu’s experience a month earlier had illustrated sprinting is a sport of fractions of a second, Olivia Breen’s experience as the first Welsh athlete to perform at the Paralympics proved it beyond doubt.

The 2022 Commonwealth Games T38 100m champion lined up in the semi-final of the same event at the Paralympics.

10.95 seconds later, Breen had finished fourth in her heat and had to nervously await the outcome of the second semi-final to find out whether she had reached that evening’s final.

However, because five of the second semi-final’s athletes were faster than Breen and fellow Brit Maddie Down had clocked 10.93 seconds to finish ahead of the Welsh athlete in her semi, Breen was agonisingly out. By just 0.02 of a second.

Photo: Olivia Breen competing in the T38 100m at the Paralympic Games.

In her second event of the Games, Breen took part in the T38 long competition. Despite the cool conditions and pouring rain, Breen made good start, leaping out to 4.99m – a distance which saw her occupying second place by the end of the third round.

Improving conditions in the fourth round saw Colombia’s Karen Tatiana Palomeque Moreno produce a new area record to exactly equal Breen’s best of 4.99m, but the south American edged ahead of Breen into the silver medal position due to her second best distance of 4.89m being longer than Breen’s 4.79m.

The 2018 Commonwealth Games long jump champion was still in the bronze medal position until the sixth and final round when Germany’s Nele Moos registered a new PB of 5.13m to leapfrog into the silver medal position and push Breen out of the medal positions.

Unfortunately, a no jump with her final effort meant the City of Portsmouth athlete finished agonisingly short of the podium in fourth place – despite matching the best distance of the bronze medallist.

Breen, who normally never has a beaming smile far from her face, was distraught after the competition and was consoled by coach Aston Moore, along with friends and family at trackside.

In an Instagram post later in the week, Breen said:

This one really hurts more than anything else in my career because I jumped exactly the same distance as the bronze medal winner but lost it on countback – it’s brutal!

 

What happened keeps coming over me in waves and I keep reminding myself this is what sport and life is like.”

But crucially, she added:

So now I am going to have a break, I know that after a couple of weeks I will want to be in the gym and back on the track – it’s what I do and it’s what makes me who I am.”

While 28-year-old Breen was competing at her fourth games, Funmi Oduwaiye (DSW Para Athletics) was making her Paralympic debut at the age of 21.

When the Cardiff athlete stepped out onto the Stade de France, she had already experienced dizzying highs and desperate lows more extreme than some sportspeople experience in a lifetime.

By 2019, a hugely promising and successful basketball career had already attracted the interest of top European teams and prestigious American colleges despite her tender years.

But a relatively routine knee surgery saw an artery damaged. Despite five surgeries in the space of two weeks to correct it, Oduwaiye was left paralysed in her right leg from the knee down and her basketball career effectively over.

However, an introduction to the late great Anthony Hughes MBE, a key figure in the development of Para sport in Wales meant a new career in shot put and discus began.

Now, the DSW Para Athletics thrower was stepping out onto the biggest para sport stage in the world. And she liked it!

After finishing eighth in the F64 women’s discus, Oduwaiye said:

I came into the stadium and just looking up, it’s crazy the amount of people that are in one space.

 

And the roar, I really like that environment. I managed to stay calm as well so I’m proud of that.”

And so she should have been. A few days later, Oduwaiye was back at the Stade de France, where she finished fifth in the F64 shot put.

Photo: Funmi Oduwaiye competing in the F64 Paralympic shot put.

The Josh Clark trained athlete said afterwards:

I have a new impairment; I've got the least experience in this entire field and I'm still top five in the world.

 

It's been an amazing experience being in Paris and I just can't wait for next time,"

 

I need a bit more training but that was a really high-quality final. I need to push harder, I don't want to turning up and getting medals, I want to really earn it and deserve.

 

I've been here for two years and I'm just getting started, this is just the beginning. This might not be my season, so we'll move onto the next, I'm so excited about what I can achieve."

Oduwaiye received a glimpse of what could be achieved a few hours after competing in the discus when Sabrina Fortune stepped into the F20 shot put circle.

The Deeside AAC athlete was simply brilliant, right from the very beginning of the competition.

Despite her nerves and admitting to being scared of the size and noise of the crowd, Fortune stepped into the throwing circle and launched the shot to a new world record with her very first effort – shattering her own existing mark.

The distance of 15.12m was enough to put Fortune more than half-a-metre beyond the efforts of the rest of the field and brought a first Paralympic gold medal to go with her three World Championship golds.

Photo: Sabrina Fortune taking her gold medal throw in the F20 shot put.

Fortune, who has ambitions to become an animator, fittingly celebrated her win with a day at Disneyland Paris.

The celebration was much deserved for Fortune as she bounced back after injury had seen her finish fifth in Tokyo three years ago.

I injured myself before Tokyo and I was scared, as when you fall down sometimes it’s much harder to get back up,

 

I was really worried after Tokyo, then I accepted the fact that you don’t always stay down. You will stand up and sometimes you stand up much better.”

Those sentiments could equally apply to the next Welsh athlete to take to the stage in Paris.

As a promising rugby player within the Ospreys set up, Harrison Walsh may have harboured ambitions of playing at the Stade de France in the red of Wales, having pulled on the famous shirt for his nation’s age group teams.

However, a freak horror tackle playing for his native Swansea meant Walsh’s rugby career was brought to a premature end, leaving him with no feeling below his right knee.

Since taking up para athletics in the wake of his injury, Walsh set a new F44 shot put world record of 15.73 metres in 2019. Then, throwing the discus, he won bronze with a 54.85 metre PB on his WPA European Championship debut in Bydgoszcz, Poland in 2021.

The 28-year-old from Mumbles made his Commonwealth Games debut in Birmingham in 2022, winning bronze in the F42-44 discus.

Walsh won the first World Championship medal of his career earlier this year with bronze in the F64 discus in Kobe, Japan – with a final throw of 52.48 metres taking him into the medal winning position.

Having been robbed of his place at the Tokyo Paralympics by injury, here he was striding out onto the hallowed turf at the home of French rugby as one of the world’s best para throwers.

Walsh finished seventh in the F46 discus final, producing a best distance of 50.44m on his Paralympic debut. There will surely be more to come.

Photo: Harrison Walsh competing in the Paralympic F46 discus.

At the other end of the experience range, Hollie Arnold was competing at her fifth Paralympic Games in the F46 javelin.

The Blackheath and Bromley athlete went into the competition hunting down a second Paralympic gold having topped the podium and claiming a Paralympic record at Rio 2016.

However, it wasn’t to be for the six-time world champion as she had to settle for a bronze medal and saw her Paralympic record broken.

Arnold threw a best of 40.5m, but it wasn’t enough to beat Venezuela’s Daniela Morillo Gill, who set a new area record and Paralympic record of 43.77m to seal her victory.

Photo: Hollie Arnold celebrating her bronze medal.

The 30-year-old Welsh athlete, who was the youngest field athlete in Paralympic history when she competed in Beijing at the age of 14, vowed to bounce back and immediately set her sights on the Los Angeles Games in four years’ time.

We have to work even harder and I’m really excited for LA,

 

It could be my last one. I’m just so grateful that we had a crowd and my family and friends were here watching.

Competing on the final night of a spectacular track and field calendar last Saturday night, Para legend Aled Davies was also eyeing gold, having topped the podium at the past three Paralympic Games in London, Rio and Tokyo.

But like fellow Para legend Arnold, Davies was unable to claim the big prize in the F42 shot put, winning a silver medal with a best throw of 15.10m behind Kuwait's Faisal Sorour, who threw 15.31m.

After his final throw, a disappointed Davies was consoled by his team, which included long-term coach Ryan Spencer-Jones, Welsh Athletics’ National Throws Co-ordinator, who himself had a busy and successful Paralympics as Team GB’s throws team leader.

Photo: Aled Davies throwing the shot put at the Paralympic Games which bought him home a silver medal.

Silver was a creditable performance considering Davies has been suffering from a painful hip injury for the past two years.

But the Bridgend man was not in the mood to settle for second best after the competition, and like Arnold vowed to blast back.

I’m not really a silver kind of guy," he said. "I've been lucky enough to be dominating it for such a long time and I don't mind losing.

 

What hurts is underperforming and that was it - I wasn't the better man. I warmed up so well, left some huge throws in the warm-up.

 

I'm gutted. I just hope I haven't let anyone down because I've worked so hard and there's been so many obstacles, like everyone… There's no excuses, but I'll be back."

Chris Type, Head of Performance at Welsh Athletics shared what’s next for Performance athletes in Wales:

With the dust settling on what has been a very successful Olympic and Paralympic Games for our Welsh Athletes, we are already looking forward to the next Olympic cycle.

 

We are all waiting for news on the Commonwealth Games. The Commonwealth Games is a key event in the planning process of our athletes and acts as the window to showcase Welsh Athletes in a Welsh Vest to the world.

 

We are hopeful for good news soon.