Helen Miles, Sallyanne Short, Carmen Smart and Sian Morris

This quartet created Welsh athletics history when they became the first Welsh women’s relay team to win a Commonwealth Games medal in 1986. And to date that achievement is still intact.

Helen, Carmen (pictured above - far right), Sallyanne and Sian (pictured above - far left) ensured their place in Welsh athletics history at the Edinburgh Games when they took the bronze medal in a Welsh record of 45.37 secs which is still the second fastest on record behind the time recorded by Wales in the 2014 Glasgow Games of 44.51 when the team finished 7th.

Helen, Carmen, Sallyanne were the leading 100 & 200 runners in Wales over a halcyon period for Welsh women sprinters between 1983 and 1994 where they took it in turns to hold the Welsh record and take all Welsh 100/200 titles during this time. However, Sian was a 400m specialist taking the Welsh title in both 1985 and 1986, the latter in the second fastest time recorded in the championships (54.19). She was an outstanding junior performer, becoming Britain’s best under 20 athlete at 400m.

Carmen set the first automatically timed 100m record of the group when she clocked 11.67 in the 1982 Brisbane Commonwealth Games. But Wales’s first track Commonwealth Games medallist Michelle Probert (later Scutt), and a Hall of Fame inductee in 2012, took the record in 1984 before Sallyanne, Helen and Carmen shared the record with Sallyanne bringing it down to 11.47 by 1990.

Then Sallyanne really stamped her mark in the 100, running a scintillating 11.39 in the 1992 Welsh Games on her home turf in Cwmbran. This stood as the Welsh record for 32 years until beaten by Hannah Briar two years ago. Although Elaine O’Neill did equal it in 2010.

That 11.39 by Sallyanne was the fastest by a British athlete that year, but came too late to gain Olympic selection for Barcelona.

In an outstanding career when she was consistently amongst the best in Britain, she took eleven Welsh titles at 100/200 in the face of stiff competition from Carmen and Helen.

Before entering the senior ranks she was an exceptional junior performer taking three under 20 titles and the Welsh Schools middle girls’ 200m championship in 1983 as a pupil at Newbridge School.

Sallyanne was third fastest in Britain in 1989 with 11.36 which was classed as windy due to the faulty wind gauge in the heats of Welsh championships in Cardiff, and this remained her fastest time ever. The general view that day was there was very little wind about and if the gauge had been working the wind would have been within the limit. Carmen took the final in a wind free Welsh record of 11.48 with Sallyanne just behind in 11.49. Helen and Carmen were also in the top seven Britons in 1989. This fact is indicative of the quality of Welsh women’s sprinting at the time.

After her medal success in the Edinburgh Games, where she also reached the 100m final, in the 1990 Auckland Commonwealth Games Sallyanne reached the final in both sprints. In the 100 she ran an excellent race to finish fifth in a windy 11.41 secs after clocking a Welsh record of 11.47 in both heat and semi-final. In the 200 she dropped a place to sixth with 23.35. Merlene Ottey, the indefatigable Jamaican took both gold medals.

Along with Helen, Sallyanne ran in the 1988 Seoul Olympics going out in the semi-final of the 4 x 100m relay, and ran 200m in the 1990 European Championships where she didn’t progress from the heats.

Like her great rivals and indeed friends, Helen was also a multi Welsh title and record holder throughout the various age groups and her first Welsh senior title came in 1984 aged just 17, when she beat holder Carmen, with Sallyanne third. That year she also took the Welsh under 20 titles at both 100 and 200, repeating the 100 win in 1985.

One of Porthcawl schoolgirl Helen’s finest performances as a junior, was a 100/200 double win in the British Schools international in Scotland 1983.

But she really excelled to take the 100m bronze medal in the European junior championships in Germany in 1985 with 11.63 after clocking a personal best and Welsh junior record of 11.62 into the wind in her semi-final. This performance put her in Britain’s top 10 irrespective of age that year, with Sallyanne just outside this top group with a 11.67 windy clocking. Helen took a second bronze as part of Britain’s 4 x 100m relay team.

Along with Carmen and Sallyanne, Helen dominated the Welsh sprinting scene between 1983 and 1994 taking seven 100/200 titles against Carmen’s five and Sallyanne’s eleven. All three were amongst the best in Britain at their peak.

Helen was good enough to be part of the British team in the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games but didn’t progress from the heats where she ran 11.88, with Sallyanne also making the team in the 4 x 100m relay which failed to make the final going out in the semis.

She retired with personal bests of 11.50 set in 1988 and 23.89 set in 1991, with the former performance ranking her fourth in Britain.

Brynhafren Comprehensive schoolgirl Carmen, like Helen and Sallyanne, was a prolific winner of Welsh titles taking numerous Welsh Schools and Welsh Women’s AAAs titles over various age groups during an outstanding career between 1974 and 1990. Remarkably, she finished third in the 1977 senior championships to Margaret Williams whilst only 16.

Her best 100 automatically timed personal best of 11.48 was set when winning her third Welsh 100 title in 1989 in Cardiff. And like Sallyanne and Helen, performances of this quality would be winning Welsh titles today, and these times were recorded over 35 years ago!

The 1989 Welsh championships were held at the new Leckwith Stadium - since moved across the road to make way for the new Cardiff City Stadium and form the present athletics complex - the first championships to be held in Cardiff for 15 years. And Carmen, now a near veteran at the age of 29, running in her 12th Welsh senior championships, and returning to competition after injury, produced her best championships performance of her long and distinguished career winning the 100m in a new Welsh automatically-timed Welsh record of 11.48, pipping Sallyanne in second who clocked 11.49 and Helen third with 11.58. Sallyanne had a phenomenal run in her heat clocking 11.36, but as previously described, due to a faulty wind gauge this could not be validated as a Welsh record.

As well as her medal winning appearance in the 1986 Commonwealth Games relay, Carmen also ran in the 1982 Brisbane and 1990 Auckland Games. In Brisbane she ran in both the 200 and 400m, reaching the semi-finals in both before being part of the Welsh team of Kirsty McDermott (now Wade); Michelle Scutt and Diane Fryar to take 5th in the 4 x 400m relay. She just missed out on a final place in the Auckland 100m. Like Sallyanne, she won 10 British vests at senior level. Carmen retired after the Auckland Games in the knowledge that she was one of Wales’s finest sprinters.

Sian first showed her potential whilst a member of Port Talbot Harriers in 1980 when she won the Welsh under 17 100 and 200m titles, also winning the 400 the following year.

Just two years later, 18 year-old Sian had a remarkable 1983 as she finished second the UK senior championships, won two senior Great Britain vests, and lowered her best 400m time by more than two seconds.

Perhaps a little bit overawed in her first senior British vest, she finished a very creditable 5th in 54.84 against the USSR in Birmingham on June 5th. Then, two weeks later in Finland, in Britain’s match against the home country and Switzerland, she had a scintillating run to win in a personal best and Welsh under 20 record of 52.80 which still stands today after more than 40 years. It was the fifth fastest time by a British athlete that year, irrespective of age.

Before her bronze medal win in the 1986 Commonwealth Games relay she ran well to make the 200m final in Edinburgh finishing seventh in 23.97 - after setting a personal best of 23.82 in her heat - but failing to reach the final in the 400 metres.

She ran for Great Britain in the European junior championships in 1983 finishing 7th in the 400m.

As well as her two Welsh senior wins over 400m in 1985 and 1986, beating reigning Commonwealth 800m champion, Kirsty Wade in the latter, she took the under 20 200m title in 1983.

The performances of all four athletes would not be out of place today, almost 40 years after their performances were achieved and Carmen, Sallyanne, Helen and Sian are worthy additions to our Hall of Fame in 2024.

Written by Clive Williams