By Paul Evans Elfyn Evans’ 100th start in the FIA World Rally Championship start isn’t going as well as he’d hoped. The Toyota driver is fifth after the first full day’s action on the super-fast Rally Estonia, just over a minute off the lead. Overshooting two junctions on one stage was costly, but at least […]

By Paul Jones Ironman Wales has been postponed by event organisers, due to the pandemic, for the second successive year. The high profile event – one of triathlon’s biggest weekend’s in Wales – was scheduled for September at its traditional Tenby venue. But the Pembrokeshire race has been put back to 2022 due to escalating […]

By Carl Field  “I remember stepping foot on to the track and pinching myself and telling myself I did it, I was an Olympian.” Those are the words of former Welsh gymnast Sonia Lawrence (now Sonia McFall) as she looks back, now almost exactly 25 years on from her experience of walking out at Atlanta’s Georgia Dome as a 16-year-old to compete for Great Britain at the 1996 Olympic Games. To this day, she remains the last women’s artistic gymnast from Wales to go to an Olympics.

By Alex Bywater  Gareth Thomas is the next cab off the rank at the Ospreys, but the Wales prop has been patiently queuing for quite some time. Thomas will make his first start for Wales on Saturday at the age of 27 – not exactly ripe or old for a front rower – but certainly an age when some players might question if running out of the tunnel in Test match rugby is ever going to happen. The loose-head will now get that opportunity against Argentina on Saturday at the Principality Stadium, in a match that is live on S4C.

By Paul Evans  Elfyn Evans hopes that his 100th start in the FIA World Rally Championship will be one to celebrate – and he certainly needs a good result on this weekend’s Rally Estonia to keep his title aspirations on track. Having won one rally (Portugal) and finished second three times (Monte Carlo, Arctic and Sardinia) on the opening five events, Evans is, as he did last year, right up there challenging for the world title.

The British and Irish Lions are now just over a week away from the start of their much anticipated test series against current World Champions South Africa. The Welsh contingent all started off at a club near you, as Tom Prosser has been finding out.  Warren Gatland’s men are currently on tour in South Africa with a squad that features many household names from Welsh rugby. But roaring Lions start out as small cubs and it’s always important to acknowledge the role grass roots clubs have played in the careers of stars such as Dan Biggar, Louis Rees-Zammit and Ken Owens.

Wales’ 4x100m men’s relay team ran the fastest time by a Welsh quartet outside of a Commonwealth Games at the Wanda Diamond League meeting in Gateshead on Tuesday night. Meanwhile the Welsh women’s team clocked one of their fastest 4x100m times ever at the same event.

By Rob Carbon The difficult task of replacing Josh Sheehan and Joss Labadie at the heart of the Newport County midfield next season is now starting to take shape. Manager, Michael Flynn will be hoping that Congolese international Christopher Missilou is the man to fill that void.  The 28-year-old has signed a one-year deal earlier this month after being among 13 players let go by relegated Swindon Town and will bring with him a wealth of Football League, as well as current international, experience to Rodney Parade.  

By Fraser Watson To go to one Olympics is a huge achievement but to go to two is phenomenal- This is the case for rugby sevens star Jasmine Joyce who is eager to write the wrongs of her experience in Rio by pushing for gold in Tokyo, as she tells Fraser Watson. Back in April, Jasmine Joyce forced herself to watch a re-run she’d spent nearly five years avoiding. The then 20-year-old had burst onto the scene at the Rio Olympics, famously searing to the try line with her first touch against hosts Brazil, and helping the Team GB Sevens side into an eventual third placed play-off match against Canada. It was that 20 minutes which would taint an otherwise incredible experience.

By Tom Prosser Sam Costelow kicked a match winning 10 points in his 18th and final appearance for Wales U20s as he steered his side to a 32-24 win over Scotland. It meant Wales finished their U20 Six Nations campaign in fourth place in a frantic match which saw the lead change hands seven times and a total of eight tries. This defeat left winless Scotland with the Wooden Spoon.

By Alex Bywater  Glamorgan’s batsmen had a field day against Northamptonshire in Day three of  their LV= Insurance County Championship clash with Kiran Carlson and Chris Cooke both notching unbeaten centuries. Carlson’s sublime 170 not out was the jewel in the crown of Glamorgan’s 462 for four as he and captain Cooke (133 not out) shared an unbeaten club record fifth-wicket stand of 307. Carlson said: “Me and Chris put on a great partnership. It was nice for me to score some runs and bat for a long time. Marnus Labuschagne and Billy Root batted beautifully earlier in the day and set the platform for us. Me and Chris knew there would be runs there for us if we batted patiently.

Jake Heyward warmed up for the Tokyo Olympics by running the fastest ever mile by a Welsh athlete at the Wanda Diamond League meeting in Gateshead on Tuesday night. The Cardiff athlete took almost two seconds off Neil Horsfield’s 35-year-old record of 3:54.39, set in Ireland back in 1986.

Warren Gatland has welcomed South Africa elevating their ‘A’ clash into an unofficial fourth Test, but the British and Irish Lions head coach has emphatically ruled out meeting for a second time on Saturday. The Springboks have picked seven starters from the XV that crushed England in the 2019 World Cup final for Wednesday’s fixture in Cape Town, including world player of the year Pieter-Steph Du Toit, Faf De Klerk and Cheslin Kolbe. Following a severe outbreak of coronavirus that has produced 26 positive tests, South Africa were forced to cancel last Friday’s second Test against Georgia and now need to give inactive players some game time, with the series against the Lions just 12 days away.

Tokyo Olympics-bound Jake Heyward and Joe Brier, along with new European Under-23 champion Jeremiah Azu will be part of a large Welsh contingent at Tuesday’s Wanda Diamond League Meeting in Gateshead. Cardiff athlete Heyward will round off his racing preparations for the 1500m in Japan by taking part in the Emsley Carr Mile alongside fellow Welsh athlete Piers Copeland.

Matt Edwards and Darren Garrod took their Yuasa Rally Team Volkswagen Polo GTI R5 to a hard fought victory on the Nicky Grist Stages at the weekend, and in doing so take the lead of the British Rally Championship.

Ioan Cunningham will be looking to round off Wales’ U20 Six Nations campaign on a high note as they battle to avoid the wooden spoon against Scotland on Tuesday. The championship has not gone Cunningham or Wales’ way and whilst they kicked off their tournament with an impressive win against Italy in round one, they were not able to keep their foot on the gas and lost their following three matches. Scotland’s campaign has also proved a difficult one and they have yet to win any of their matches.

London Pulse assistant coach and Head of Academy, Danielle Titmuss, is the new Head Coach for Celtic Dragons. The highly-experienced coach takes up the appointment immediately to begin preparations for the 2022 Vitality Netball Superleague season.

The school summer holidays are beckoning, the Euros are over, so what better time for cricket to stride out into the middle and take centre stage? At the elite end, Welsh Fire are about to ignite The Hundred, while down at grass roots level opportunities to start playing the game have never looked more appealing, as Graham Thomas reports. Former England captain Alastair Cook believes this will be the summer of love when it comes to children and cricket. All across the UK, activities are opening up for youngsters to play the game and develop their skills in a sport forced to mostly slumber through 2020 in the early months of lockdown.

By Paul Jones Seven Welsh players have been included in a strong Lions line-up that appears to resemble a shadow Test side as the tourists prepare to face South Africa A on Wednesday. Lions coach Warren Gatland has included Louis-Rees-Zammit, Josh Adams and Dan Biggar in his back line, with Wyn Jones, Ken Owens, Josh […]

Roberto Mancini’s Italy – who overcame Wales in the group stages – have been heralded as “Invincibles” after beating England to win Euro 2020 at Wembley. The Azzurri were crowned champions of Europe following a tense penalty shoot-out, which confirmed the men in blue’s unbeaten run in the competition. Monday’s back pages across the sporting world were awash with tributes to Italy, and their newfound status as the cream of Europe.