The Commonwealth Games may be over, but a summer of Welsh rivalry in athletics is about to begin. Owen Morgan looks at the two city clubs who will now both be competing at elite level.

 Both Swansea and Cardiff WILL be in the “premier” when the next campaign starts later this year.

That isn’t as bold a prediction as you might think. While the football clubs based in Wales’ two largest cities battle it out for Premier League status next season, their athletics clubs are gearing up to face each other in British athletics’ top flight for the first time in their history.

On May 5 this year, the men’s teams from Swansea Harriers and Cardiff Amateur Athletics Club will be lining up on the start line for the opening fixture in the British Athletics League Premiership.

By then, the Swans, who are battling to stay in the Premier League and the Bluebirds, who are striving to get there, may or may not know their fate, but their athletics counterparts will definitely be dining at their sport’s domestic top table.

Cardiff won promotion when they clinched the Division One title by winning the final fixture of last summer’s campaign. The result was in doubt right up until the final relay races of the meeting.

Swansea finished the day in third place, but it was enough to help them end the season half a point ahead of Sale to finish league runners-up to their South Wales rivals, clinching a place in the men’s top flight for the first time in the club’s history.

Swansea and Cardiff will be mixing it with the some of the most famous names in British athletics history, including Birchfield Harriers, Newham and Essex Beagles and Thames Valley Harriers.

The two clubs will be more than worthy additions to the league, bringing with them a host of athletic talent to the top division, including the likes of current Commonwealth Games athletes Josh Griffiths and Jonathan Hopkins from Swansea and Cardiff’s Rowan Axe, Ieuan Thomas and Tom Marshall.

In total, between the men’s and women’s sections, the clubs each have six athletes who competed for Wales at the Commonwealth Games in Australia.

Swansea would have had seven but for middle distance runner Dewi Griffiths’ withdrawal through injury.

Meanwhile, Cardiff’s Commonwealth contingent is supplemented by marathon runner Kevin Seaward who represented Northern Ireland, making it a magnificent seven for the club at the Games.

Both clubs will be hoping their star names have returned unscathed from the Gold Coast, but their success has been built on all-round team efforts.

Swansea Harriers media officer Ian Griffiths says: “It’s been a lot of hard work by all the athletes and Dai Jones the team manager, who has been around for many, many years.

“It’s fitting that the two main clubs in Wales should be in the top flight of club athletics in the UK.

“As a club we’ve done very well. We had seven athletes selected in the Commonwealth Games team. It was brilliant to see that we’ve had so many taking part.

“It enhances the stature of the club because people now want to come and join and compete for us.

“The junior section is really flourishing, but we still have to rely on some of the older athletes, the Peter Roberts of this world, who has been a member for 25-30 years and still turns out in the British League.

“There are people like Glyn Price, who is over 50 but is still getting almost four metres in the pole vault. And he can turn his hand to other events such as the hurdles and possibly one or two field events.

“We still rely on a hardcore of athletes to get us where we are. They are the stalwarts. But we can always do with more quality athletes.

“If we manage to stay up this year, hopefully, it will attract more people to us. Last year was one of the best seasons the club has had in its history.

“The women have been in the UK Women’s Premier League for about six years. They retained their status and the men got promoted.

“We also won the Welsh League and the National 12 Stage Road Relay Championships up in Birmingham; the women also finished third in that relay.

“Our prestige has really risen and we have now got somewhere in the region of 750 to 800 members.”

While this will be Swansea’s first season in the men’s premiership, Cardiff boast a proud record in the Premier League, having been champions three times in a row in 1973, ’74 and ’75.

Cardiff team manager Andrew Seary says: “It’s been a prime aim for the club for a long time to get back to that level.

“The club’s got a rich history of being in the top flight of athletics. For a club to showcase the quality of athletes we’ve got, it’s where we need to be.

“The pain for us actually is that we’ve had so many good athletes at the Commonwealth Games, so that’s going to have an initial effect on the league. We don’t know how many of those will be available for the first fixture.

“And that first fixture also coincides with a British Universities event outdoors as well, so both ourselves and Swansea are likely to lose quite a few athletes to that. But the team’s looking strong in a lot of events. It’s going well.

“In middle distance, especially, we are quite strong as a club, as are the sprints, where most of the athletes are. So we could go down to second or third or fourth choice and still be relatively strong.

“But if they took our best two high jumpers away from us then we’d struggle a little because we haven’t got as much depth.”

The league campaign consists of four fixtures, featuring all eight teams, which will be held in May, June, July and August.

The June fixture holds particular significance for the Cardiff club as it will be playing host to the fixture at the city’s International Sports Stadium in Leckwith.

The event on June 2 will be a double celebration as it will mark the 50th anniversary of Roath Harriers and Birchgrove Harriers amalgamating to form Cardiff Amateur Athletics Club.

As well as a huge achievement for the individual clubs, their presence in the Premiership is a further shot in the arm for Welsh Athletics, which recently celebrated record membership numbers when figures topped 12,000 for the first time.

Griffiths says: “I think it will be a tremendous boost for Welsh athletics in general because it will show the English regions that we may be out on a little bit of a limb here, but we have got two top class teams who can compete with the best in club athletics in this country.”

Seary agrees: “I think it highlights how strong Welsh club athletics is. You can’t compare it to England as a nation, but we naturally attract the better athletes from around south Wales, so we are developing two really strong clubs. It’s great for south Wales.”

While the Cardiff-Swansea football rivalry sometimes boils over, the competition between the two athletics teams in the Premiership will be fervent, but friendly.

Seary adds: “The difference is that everyone knows each other. On the track you may be competitors but most of them are good friends too, and most of them have grown up in athletics together.

“They’ve been competing year, on year on year against each other. There is a good rivalry, but it’s a friendly rivalry.”

Griffiths says: “It’s not as intense as it is between the two football teams. There is a rivalry between us, but I think it’s going to be more of a friendly rivalry than anything else.

“It’s just really good to see two teams in Wales taking on the top English clubs. Hopefully, both can stay up and be there this time next year as well.”

The opening fixture of the British Athletics League Premiership will be held in Sheffield on May 5.

The teams taking part will be: Birchfield Harriers, Cardiff AAC, City of Sheffield and Dearne AC, Newham and Essex Beagles, Shaftesbury Barnet Harriers, Swansea Harriers, Thames Valley Harriers, Woodford Green and Essex Ladies.