Melissa Courtney-Bryant edged ever closer to the Welsh 1500m record as she smashed her personal best at the Stockholm Diamond League meeting on Sunday afternoon. The Poole AC athlete slashed more than a second-and-a-half off her previous best which she set winning a 1500m bronze medal for Wales at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.

Jake Smith recently went for a run with his mates and finished with a time that suggested he might just be good enough to make next year’s Olympics. But the clock hasn’t always been so kind to the Cardiff student as he tells Jenny Nesbitt. It seems Jake Smith has been cursed with being unable to break certain time barriers for particular distances. The 62:00.00 half marathon runner and current British U23 record holder is no slouch, yet his personal best of 14:00.45 for 5,000m and his 29:01.08 for 10,000m would leave you questioning whether a spell had been cast over him.

Callum Taylor admitted it felt a little “surreal” to enter the record books after making a century on his first class debut for Glamorgan. The 22-year-old from Newport struck a magnificent 106 off 94 balls away to Northamptonshire on day one of the Welsh county’s latest game in the Bob Willis trophy. In doing so, Taylor – son of former Pontypool rugby captain Matthew Taylor – joined a small band of Glamorgan players, including two greats, who have reached three figures on their first class debut.

“He must have taken a knock to the head, mate,” was the blunt assessment made by John Mulvihill of the rugby writer who suggested Cardiff Blues were now the weakest of Wales’ four regions. That was 48 hours before the re-start of the Guinness Pro 14, but having conceded five tries in a one-sided defeat to a Scarlets team that rarely needed to get out of third gear, the Sunday morning headache probably belongs to the Blues’ head coach. The Scarlets are the strongest of Wales’ four teams and have been for some time, but if the Blues have not slipped behind the Dragons and the Ospreys they did little to disprove that theory in their first game back.

A speculative tweet to the organisers of the Virgin Money London Marathon has led to a Cardiff distance runner taking part in a unique race involving the world’s greatest athletes. Due to Covid-19 restrictions, this year’s London Marathon will be an elite-only showdown involving the likes of endurance legends Eliud Kipchoge and Kenenisa Bekele and run in a secure biosphere at St James’s Park on October 4. When the race, organised to replace the usual mass-participation event, was announced earlier this month, Dan Nash was keen to a part in the historic occasion, which also marks the London Marathon’s 40th anniversary.

Wales Golf has hailed the success of women’s New2Golf schemes as a crucial part in seeing female membership of golf clubs in Wales rising. In Women and Girls Week for Wales Golf, the scheme which takes beginners and lapsed golfers in groups which can be female only has proved successful at taking participants through to becoming golf club members.

Former Dragons head coach Paul Turner is envious of the riches Dean Ryan has at his disposal at Rodney Parade and believes the Gwent region can win at the Liberty Stadium for the first time in a decade. Professional rugby in Wales will make its long awaited comeback this weekend after five months’ hibernation caused […]

Barry Town suffered one of the most embarrassing defeats in the history of Welsh domestic football this week as they were thrashed in the Faroe Islands. However, this catastrophic defeat asks questions of the whole domestic structure in Wales as Matthew Burgess explains. Barry Town United’s defeat to NSI Runavik was abysmal – but let’s get […]

Ireland batsman Andrew Balbirnie is joining Glamorgan for the Vitality Blast. The former Cardiff Met student who put England to the sword in a ODI game at Southampton this summer will be available for all 10 of their group stage matches.

Cardiff City, Swansea City and Newport County are all digesting their new fixture lists as The Football Supporters’ Association co-ordinate a new campaign to protect the “very existence” of clubs across the country. With the English Football League fixture list out for the 2020-21 season, the three Welsh clubs have an opportunity to examine what lies ahead. In the Championship, after their play-off bids ended at the semi-final stage for last season, Cardiff host Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday September 12, while Swansea City are away at Preston North End.

Newport County have made a double splash in the transfer market with the signings of Ryan Taylor and David Longe-King. Taylor, 32, joins from Plymouth Argyle where he made 98 appearances , twice winning promotion to League One. The striker found the back of the net three times last season and has signed a one-year […]

Elfyn Evans is relishing the restart of the FIA World Rally Championship – even more so as the Welshman currently holds a strong second place in the title race having made his best-ever start to a season. After the opening three rounds before the global COVID-19 lockdown, Evans is only topped in the points standings by Sébastien Ogier, his six-time World Champion team-mate at Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT.

Welsh rugby is back – the four professional teams, the international stars, the TV cameras, if not the crowds. But something else has returned, too. The background noise of infighting, mistrust and suspicion is there, this time surrounding the free-spending, upwardly mobile Dragons. Steffan Thomas says it’s great to the Dragons where they are now, but suggests there needs to be openness about how they got there. Mahatma Ghandi once said, “truth never damages a cause that is just.” Some might be wonder why a quote from an Indian anti-colonial nationalist is relevant in the context of Welsh rugby, but, like the British Empire, transparency hasn’t always been the game’s strong point.

Top golf prospect Ffion Tynan led the way for Wales to finish fifth in the English Women’s Open Amateur Stroke Play Championship. The Pontyclun teenager finished on level par – six strokes behind winner Annabell Fuller of England at Burnham & Berrow Golf club. Tynan, who has won a golf scholarship in Arizona, carded rounds of 69 and 74 before finishing with a 73 and 72 on Thursday’s final day.

Dean Ryan expects the Ospreys to be pumped up and firing as they step on to the field on Sunday for their first game under new head coach Toby Booth. The Dragons boss has banished any thoughts in his camp about the game being a meaningless exercise for the home side. There may not be Guinness Pro 14 play-off places at stake, but it is a Welsh derby. “I saw first-hand the passion that comes with a Welsh derby game last season and I don’t expect to get an easy ride from the Ospreys in what will be Toby’s first game in charge,” said Ryan.

Wales Golf director of performance Gillian O’Leary has welcomed the invitations for top Welsh amateurs to experience professional golf through the Rose Ladies Series. Six Welsh amateur internationals had the chance to play alongside the likes of Solheim Cup players Georgia Hall, Charley Hull and Dame Laura Davies, in the series of events inspired by former US Open winner Justin Rose and his wife to plug the gaps in the schedule because of Coronavirus.

Connah’s Quay boss Andy Morrison thought he had seen it all in football until he witnessed the diving antics of Champions League rivals FK Sarajevo. In an extraordinary blast at the Bosnian champions the former Manchester City skipper claimed the Bosnian players had “no shame”. The Nomads were handed a 2-0 defeat on their Champions League qualification debut by a clinical Sarajevo.

Welsh rugby is full of unsung heroes be it kitmen, physiotherapists or coaches. Geoff Davies should be celebrated as a national treasure having played a significant role in developing some of the finest scrum-halves in Welsh rugby history. The former schoolteacher and rugby coach sits down with Steffan Thomas to recall his 50 year career in […]

Geraint Thomas was putting on a brave face today after seeing his target suddenly shifted from the Tour de France to the Giro d’Italia. The 2019 Yellow Jersey winner was surprisingly excluded from from Team Ineos’ Tour plans just 10 days before the Grand Depart in Nice along with four-time winner Chris Froome.

The immense and far-reaching benefits delivered by Wales Rally GB have been highlighted in a new infographic depicting many of the widespread rewards generated by last year’s staging of the UK’s annual round of the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC). Now that 2019’s final figures have been verified, it is possible to judge the full extent of the losses experienced in Wales following the enforced cancellation of this year’s planned event due to the COVID-19 pandemic.