By Owen Morgan
Olympic medallist Holly Bradshaw will be part of a strong entry for this weekend’s Welsh Senior Athletics Championships in Cardiff.
Bradshaw – who won a bronze medal in Tokyo in the pole vault – is set to be joined over Saturday and Sunday by the likes of Great Britain Olympic 4×400 team member Joe Brier and the best of Wales’ athletics talent, many of whom will be chasing qualifying standards for next year’s Commonwealth Games as well as medals.
Olympic 1500m finalist Jake Heyward is entered in strong 5,000m and 1,500m fields, but it has yet to be confirmed whether he will race following his efforts in Tokyo which saw him finish ninth in the final.
If he does compete, the Cardiff athlete will be up against the likes of rising Menai Track and Field Club star Osian Perrin in both the 1500m and 5000m.
The 1500m field also features in-form Cardiff athletes James Heneghan and Benjamin Reynolds along with Newport’s Remi Adebiyi.
The 5,000m features World Athletics Championships marathon runner Josh Griffiths, his Swansea Harriers teammate and multi-talented Great Britain regular Kris Jones, along with 2018 Commonwealth Games 1500m competitor Tom Marshall.
Heyward’s GB team-mate Brier is entered in the 200m and 400m in a sprints schedule which is packed with talented male and female sprinters.
Dai Greene, the 2011 World Champion is due to run in the 400m hurdles while the men’s 100m has attracted a 54-strong entry including European Under-23 100m champion Jeremiah Azu and fellow Cardiff athlete Sam Gordon – the two fastest men in Wales.
The women’s sprints also boast a strong entry including Commonwealth Games sprinters Hannah Brier and Mica Moore in the 100m and Caryl Granville in the 100m and 400m hurdles – all three are closing in on the standards for next year’s games in Birmingham.
At the other end of the speed scale, Britain’s best female race walkers – Bethan Davies, of Cardiff, and Pembrokeshire’s Heather Lewis – go head to head over 10,000m.
In the field events, Bradshaw, who will be joined by a number of other non-Welsh qualified athletes, will be no stranger to the Welsh Championships, where she won the pole vault competition back in 2015.
Coached by former Welsh national coach Scott Simpson, Bradshaw has regularly trained at the National Indoor Athletics Centre in Cardiff, alongside Welsh Commonwealth Games pole vault medallist Sally Peake.
Following her Olympic performance, Bradshaw paid tribute to former Welsh international pole vaulter Simpson and said “Scott and I have been working together for eight or nine years, and it’s not just an athlete-coach relationship, it’s a deep friendship.
“We rely on each other every step of the way. I couldn’t wish for a better mentor, friend and he means the world to me.”
Bradshaw may be the star global name in the field events, but there will be a huge amount of domestic talent on show away from the track.
The men’s hammer will see a shoot-out for medals between two athletes who have already achieved the Commonwealth Games standard – Welsh record holder Osian Jones and reigning Welsh Champion Jac Palmer.
Paralympics-bound Harrison Walsh is due to compete in the men’s discus where Neath’s Harry Davies and Pembrokeshire’s James Tomlinson will be among those hoping to challenge for medals.
In the women’s long jump, Rebecca Chapman will bid to regain the title she last won in 2018 and find the handful of centimetres she needs for a Commonwealth standard. The women’s triple jump features Sarah Abrams who will also have her eyes on a medal and Birmingham.
In form Adele Nicoll, who registered her second longest ever throw competing for Birchfield Harriers in the National Athletics League last weekend, will also have a double goal in the women’s shot put.
Saturday and Sunday’s action will also feature the Welsh Under-15 championships as well as a special multi-events challenge and invitational sprint relays.
Welsh Athletics CEO James Williams is delighted to see the return of not only the Welsh Championships, after last year’s event was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but also other events like the Welsh Junior Championships which were successfully held in Newport at the end of last month.
Like the junior event, this weekend’s championships will be able to welcome up to 500 spectators on each day – the largest capacities at athletics events in Wales since restrictions were enforced last year.
Williams told Dai Sport: “I have been as frustrated as others watching events like the Euros with 60,000 people in Wembley, and yet we couldn’t get more than 50 people in the stand at athletics tracks in Wales.
“So, the opening up of sports and the continued easing of restrictions, it’s what we all want. All of our clubs, all of our athletes and all of our coaches have been incredibly patient, and incredibly resourceful.
“We’ll maintain as safe an environment as possible. But we want to get our sport back, and we’re grateful some of our partners are allowing us to do this.
“We’ll do whatever we can to ensure that as many people as possible can come and celebrate the sport again.
“I’ve got to say the entries have been fantastic as well. We’ve got some very big entry lists in certain event groups.”
Williams also hopes the sport will now be able to re-introduce more events away from the track and field environment, on the roads, trails, cross country and the possible return of the hugely popular parkrun events from August 21.
“We’ve obviously managed to do quite a lot on the track and field side over the summer,” he said.
!!
We are delighted to announce that World Record holder @harrisonwalsh1 will be competing at this year’s #2021WelshChamps !!@bbcsportwales @sportwales @BritAthletics @dsw_news @TeamGB #Represent #HigherLongerFaster #ListenEngageRepresent #paralympics pic.twitter.com/uzwJ9sLVSM
— @welshathletics (@WelshAthletics) August 12, 2021
“But because of the restrictions, we haven’t really been able to do as much as anybody would like on the off-track side of things.
“We’ve delivered a number of small scale events in Pembrey and Rhyl, and a number of events are slowly returning.”
Williams feels athletics in general and running in particular can play a huge part in helping the nation recover from some of the physical and mental effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
“That’s the beauty of our sport,” he said. “It covers so many different aspects. We saw more people start running than any other activity during lockdown.
“I think our sport can play a massive role in the recovery of the health of the nation. The more people who are running and doing physical activity the better. Parkrun will play a huge role in that with 63 parkruns across Wales, plus two additional events in prisons in Wales.
“So hundreds of thousands of people are part of our community. Hundreds of thousands of people take part in the various endurance events across Wales each year. Hundreds of thousands of people are a part of the running clubs and social running groups that we support.
“And these individuals are all shapes and sizes and of all levels of ability and experience.
“That’s the beauty of our sport. We put just as much emphasis on people who take their first step as we do on those who are competing at the Olympic Games.”
“As soon as these events return, the sooner more people can get out there and do their Couch to 5K programmes and the sooner we can, hopefully, start to see an impact on the health of the nation.”
Spectators attending this weekend’s championships are advised to book their tickets in advance on the Welsh Athletics website in order to help manage numbers and comply with track and trace requirements.
There will only be a very limited number of tickets on sale on the day. A full timetable of the weekend’s action is also available on the website.