Exclusive by Owen Morgan

Just a few months after returning to training following a three year break from competitive racing, a Welsh 1500m runner found herself lining up in the semi-final of the Spanish Indoor Championships.

As she stepped up to the start-line, Angharad Davies was flanked by Olympians and Spanish household names for a race about to be beamed live across the country on national TV.

“It was a bit surreal to be honest because I only did my first village race back running in December and I hadn’t raced at all since January 2017,” said the former Carmarthen Harrier, who is no stranger to high level sporting events.

Away from the track, Davies works for Hawk-eye Innovations, the company behind supplying football’s Video Assistant Referee (VAR) and similar technology for many other sports.

It was while travelling the world setting up equipment on the professional tennis tour that Davies’ running career was put on hold.
Between all the travelling and being unable to get a number of niggling injuries treated, running took a back seat.

“I got a job with Hawk-eye on the tennis where I was travelling to different tournaments around the world,” said Davies, who hails from Llandovery.

“So travelling around so much with the tennis, I couldn’t even see a physio. I worked there for a year and a half, so I would run every other day for 20 minutes, 10 minutes, whatever my body could cope with to keep ticking over and somehow keep some fitness.

“But I had niggles for the entire time I was working at the tennis. So it was injury and also circumstances that meant I couldn’t really get back fit or get the treatment I needed.”

But when Hawk-eye won the contract to supply VAR technology in Spain, where she had previously worked as an English teacher, Davies saw an opportunity to cut down on her travelling and a possible return to running.

“Working on the tennis was excellent, a really unique experience,” she said. “It was really hard work, because you would be away for a couple of months at a time working every day, long hours, but excellent.

“It’s hard to maintain that kind of lifestyle for a long time and Hawk-eye got the contract for VAR in Spain.

“My boyfriend lives in Spain, and I would travel back between events, so I decided to ask if I could transfer back to the Spanish football department, so I now work in VAR in Galicia in the north of Spain.

“It worked out perfectly because it was time for me to change from the tennis, it was an exhausting job – amazing – but it did get tiring.”

Now based in Galicia with the opportunity to start training again, Davies decided to enter a local race to test her fitness.

“I tried to do an indoor race here three weeks ago. I had said ‘I’m not fit enough to do a 1500m race’, but I thought ‘ah go for it’.

“I wasn’t in form but the best way to test yourself is to get back on the track and see how you get on.

“After the race my coach said ‘we’ve qualified for the Galician Championships!’, which I didn’t expect.

“So we went there and he was like, ‘well you’re training well so see what you can do’. I got the qualification time for the Spanish Champs, which were luckily being held in Galicia.”

The recent national championships were a huge step up from Davies’ two comeback races, both in the size of the event and the quality of athletes taking part.

“It was on the national sports channel, live all day Saturday and Sunday,” says Davies, who won a Welsh Championships 5,000m silver medal in 2011 and a 1500m bronze in 2012

“I suppose the equivalent at home would be the British Champs. Because you have to qualify it was quite a strong field. There were 19 of us within two seconds of each other in terms of qualifying times and then the rest were another level up again.

“Esther Guerrero has been to most major champs, Europeans, Worlds, she was actually defending her title and then there was Marta Pérez and another girl in my race Isabel Macías, she competed at the Olympics in London, she’s a little bit more of a veteran and quite well known in Spanish athletics.

“It was a little bit surreal to be surrounded by these woman I’d watched but never considered racing against them so soon.”

The photograph accompanying this article shows Davies being flanked by Guerrero and Macías. Davies says: “It’s actually a very cool one because I’m between the two Olympians. It was worth going out with them strong for the first two laps just for the photo!”

Davies finished 8th in the semi-final, but her time of 4:38.28 was less than a second outside her personal best set back in 2016.

The former Llandovery College and Bath University student’s performance at the Spanish Championships has given the 27-year-old a taste for competing again.

Davies says: “I’ve not taken running seriously for the last couple of years because of the niggles and work circumstances but it’s changed my way of looking at it now because I was able to run with these top girls.

“Obviously they are at another level, but to be in the mix after only a few months of proper training. It was good motivation for what I could possibly do.

“It was an indoor PB and one second off my outdoor PB. I’m looking forward to the outdoor season now because you tend to run a lot faster outdoors if the conditions are right, so it’s promising.

“I think before the Spanish championships I was taking one race at a time to see what I could do, but now I’ve got so close to my PB in such a short space of time. I’d done two or three weeks of specific 1500m work – before that I was just trying to get fit again.

“I’ve spoken to my coach and he wants to break 4.30 if I can. There are championships out here for me to run in, but for me it’s special just getting anywhere near 4.30, or even sub-4.30 if I can stay fit.

“I think my approach now is just feeling very lucky to be able to race. I think the change of attitude is without pressure, just giving what I’ve got and seeing how it goes.

“I am looking forward to it but I want to keep enjoying it because it’s a nice feeling.”

Davies’ time at the Spanish Championships ranks her as the fifth fastest Welsh woman over 1500m this year.

Asked whether she would consider coming back to compete at the Welsh Championships in the summer, Davies says she would love to . . . work and other commitments permitting.

“I have looked at the dates, but I think I am away at that time. I have considered coming home for a couple of races because it would be special to race against girls that I used to race against and see how I get on compared to the girls at home.

“So it’s definitely something I’ve looked at and if I’m fit, healthy and running well I definitely would like to get a race or two in at home if I can.

“I’m not too far off considering the lack of training. It would be quite a nice goal to come back and race against some of the Welsh girls.”

Would a place on Wales’ Commonwealth Games team for Birmingham 2022 be an ambition?

“I think the Commonwealths would be another level. It’s nice to have this improvement in such a short space of time. Everything is going well and I don’t want to jinx it. I just want to chip away at my PB little by little and see how far I can get.”

Although her tennis globe-trotting days are behind her, working on La Liga and Segunda matches every weekend still means there are pressures on Davies’ training and competing.

“The issue is trying to juggle things,” says Davies. “Football obviously is at the weekend, so the only races I’ve been able to do are the ones I can squeeze in between matches. I’m freelance so I do get to pick and choose a little bit.

“I usually train in the mornings and I also work in an academy in the afternoon teaching English, so I’ve got into quite a nice routine of training in the mornings and then juggle it a little bit at weekends with the football.

“If there is a race I can try to do, I will speak to my bosses. They’ve been really understanding.

“They were great with the Spanish Championships because I couldn’t give them much notice. I qualified and had to tell them that day. So they have been fantastic.

“But that’s the issue, juggling it with two jobs really. People don’t realise what it entails being an athlete.

“I’ve got friends who are professional athletes and it’s a struggle for them too because there’s not the money you get in other sports, especially in Wales – rugby and the like.”

But for football fan Davies, working on VAR at some of Spain’s biggest club matches is a pleasure she is happy to share with running.

“It’s quite a special job,” she says. “There are days when it’s quite stressful and other days when it goes a bit smoother but it’s an exciting job to have.

“Because I work in the Galician region most of the teams I work at are in the Segunda, the second division . . . Deportivo, Lugo, Ponferradina.

“We also travel across to Gijon and Oviedo. Celta Vigo is an hour-and-a-half away so I do games there quite often, so I work on a few main La Liga matches.

“My job title is a technical guarantee. Essentially we set up everything at the stadium. We check all the hardware on site and do all the tests beforehand to make sure there is good communication between the stadium and the replay centre in Madrid.

“Basically my job on site is to install all the hardware, make sure everything is working correctly with the referees and if they have any issues we fix them.

“I love watching live sport in general, but I’ve always followed football, so it’s special to me on matchday being part of it.

“Sometimes you get the abuse, but you have to take it with a pinch of salt!”

Despite her weekly involvement in top flight football, she has yet to cross paths with another Welsh exile plying his trade in Spain – Gareth Bale.

“The first match of the season was Vigo against Madrid but I worked on a different match that day, so I didn’t get to meet him, no.

“At the moment he’s not the most popular amongst the Spanish, especially the Real Madrid fans.”

However she is hoping to watch the Welsh skipper live at this year’s European Championships, where he will be cheered on by much more supportive fans amongst the Red Wall, which gained its name at the 2016 tournament in France.

Davies says: “I went out to the last Euros. I was in Bordeaux, it was amazing. I’ve got a ticket for one of the matches out in Azerbaijan but I’ve got to figure out whether I can get there.

“I’ve got to work on the Monday and I think it’s about a 30-hour flight or something, it’s just crazy logistics. If it’s on at the moment with Coronavirus.”

As yet, the virus hasn’t had an effect on her work football work in Spain. “There are quite a few cases so they were talking about having matches behind closed doors. I think it’s take things week by week and listen to the advice.”

The other question mark in Davies’ life recently is how Brexit will affect her as a Welsh woman living in Spain.

“I don’t even know the answer to that unfortunately,” she says. “I’ve got a residency card which is not permanent but I’ve got work and that’s a big thing in Spain if you’ve got a work contract.

“I’ve had to do paperwork in terms of my driving licence, but in terms of work Hawk-eye is an international company and at the moment it looks ok. We’ll see, I’m a little bit in the dark.”

For now she is happy to be back running and enjoying her work in Spain, where she admits life is very different from her native town in the Carmarthenshire countryside.

“It’s a different world. I mean, I know everybody in Llandovery, but I am almost anonymous here so that’s probably the biggest difference. I know the names of everyone I walk past in the street there.

“Where I live now, the weather, unfortunately at the moment, is almost exactly the same, it rains constantly. It’s very green, so if you went to Galicia it looks like Wales or Ireland, you could be there, so it looks like home. It’s a very different way of life and I do miss home.”

The Galician rain brings back fond memories of her time with Carmarthen Harriers, where she was part of a training group which included current Welsh international Alaw Beynon Thomas and Great Britain international Dewi Griffiths.

Davies says: “It was fantastic to be honest. Kev Evans was my coach, so I had a very good and strong group there. I always look back with nostalgia to my old group.

“Dewi Griffiths trained with me and Alaw Beynon Thomas, they’ve gone on to do amazing things. We were just five or six of us on the track on a Thursday night, tipping down with rain – it didn’t stop!

“So I do look back at it in a very sentimental way. Apart from the rain – it would be like ‘if it’s not rainin’ it’s not trainin’.’ That was the attitude.”

And Davies obviously keeps up to date with the athletics scene back in Wales, where she has been watching Griffiths’ progress as he bids to return from illness and injury to challenge for a place at the Tokyo Olympics.

“Dewi is very brave the way he comes back, he just puts himself out there,” she says. “I have a lot of respect for him. He is the king of bouncing back, you can never write him off, he just ticks over and I’m sure he will get back to where he was. He’s hard as nails.”

When it comes to impressive comebacks, the girl from Llandovery, who rubbed shoulders with Spain’s Olympians a few months after her return to athletics, certainly knows what she’s talking about.