Matthew Hirst/Declan Dear are set to become Motorsport UK Pirelli Welsh Rally champions for a record-equalling third time as they take an unassailable lead into the final round of the all-gravel series, the Wyedean Stages Rally on Saturday. The defending champions have led the series since the beginning of the season, winning the opening four rounds in their Delta Salvage/Witham Group Ford Fiesta R5.

Dewi Griffiths will hope for home support when he carries the flag for Wales into Saturday’s 26th edition of the Cardiff Cross Challenge at Llandaff Fields. Griffiths will use the race as preparation for his spring marathon campaign and the Olympic hopeful intends to bring the form that has taken the Swansea Harrier to eight domestic cross-country titles.

Lauren Williams has still not got over her Olympic heartbreak in Tokyo. Photos show a smiling Williams posing with her taekwondo silver medal and a victory bouquet shortly after her narrow defeat to Matea Jelic at the women’s -67kg final at the Makuhari Messe Convention Centre in 2021.

Stuart Manley has revealed it means everything to him to have reclaimed his place on the DP World Tour – formerly called the European Tour – at the age of 44. The Welsh golfer snatched back his tour card after enduring a nerve-wracking three-and-a-half-hour wait to confirm his position among the Challenge Tour’s graduates at the weekend.

Zoe Backstedt continued to prove her versatility as well as her huge potential when she won the Under 23 Women’s title at the European Cyclo-cross Championships in France. Backstedt added a second European jersey to her 2023 collection at the weekend, after winning the race in sensational style under tough conditions.

Joe Cordina has admitted he was below par in defence of his world title, but still too good for Edward Vazquez. Cordina retained his IBF super-featherweight title with a majority decision win over Vazquez in Monte Carlo.

Joe Cordina insists he has given “journeyman” challenger Edward Vazquez plenty of respect ahead of their world title fight in Monte Carlo on Saturday night. The Welsh IBF super featherweight champion (16-0, 9 KOs) first became world champion in June 2022 when he dispatched Kenichi Ogawa with a shuddering one-punch knockout. However, a subsequent injury lay-off necessitated by hand surgery saw the 31-year-old stripped of his crown, with Shavkat Rakhimov beating Zelfa Barrett for the vacant belt in November last year.

World champion Matt Richards heads five Welsh swimmers who have been invited on to British Swimming’s World Class Programme (WCP) for the 2023-2024 season. With just over nine months to go until the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, world and Olympic gold medal winner Richards is joined by Daniel Jervis, Medi Harris, Tyler Melbourne-Smith and Hector Pardoe.

Zoe Backstedt has been included in the Great Britain team to compete in the 2023 UEC Cyclo-cross European Championships this weekend. The Welsh rider will be in Pont-Chateau, France, to compete as part of an 11-strong mix of experienced and debutant riders, all vying to take a place on the podium to give an early boost to their cyclo-cross season.

Elfyn Evans has congratulated Kalle Rovanpera after the Finnish driver retained his World Rally Championship title. Welsh driver Evans conceded his race for the title was over at the weekend when Rovanpera’s main rival retired on Saturday from the Central European Rally, the penultimate event of the season.

Carmarthen will host the start of next month’s Roger Albert Clark Rally, which is the biggest event of its kind in the UK. Up to 170 rally cars and support crews will assemble in the West Wales market town for the biennial rally, which has attracted competitors from all over the world and headed by international star drivers Kris Meeke, Oliver Solberg and Chris Ingram.

Great Britain pair Ruby Evans and Poppy-Grace Stickler will headline for Wales as full men’s and women’s teams compete at next month’s artistic gymnastics Northern European Championships in Sweden. Wales will include five Commonwealth Games stars after selection was confirmed for Halmstad and this year’s event from November 24 to 26.

Emma Finucane is trying to ignore her new status as sprint world champion as she sets her sights on achieving Olympic glory in Paris next summer. The 20-year-old Welsh star shocked herself when she took the women’s individual sprint title in Glasgow in August, beating Germany’s favoured Lea Friedrich in the final.

Anna Hursey has become a contender for the Paris Olympics next year after seeing her world table tennis ranking rocket up from 163 to number 106. The 17-year-old – already a veteran of two Commonwealth Games with Wales – needs to break into the world’s top 80 for automatic selection for the Great Britain squad and is heading in the right direction.

Geraint Thomas has suggested he will have two more years in cycling before he rides off into the sunset. The Welsh legend has a two-year contract extension with Ineos Grenadiers which will see him continue racing until 2025.

Matthew Hirst and Declan Dear will have another chance to clinch the Motorsport UK Pirelli Welsh Rally Championship title for a third time on this weekend’s penultimate round of the series, the Visit Conwy Cambrian Rally (Saturday 28 October). In a carbon copy of last year, the Delta Salvage/Witham Group Ford Fiesta R5 crew scored maximum points on the first four rounds of their 2023 campaign, only for their Woodpecker Stages jinx to deny them a five out of five clean sweep.

Glamorgan teenage pair Henry Hurle and Asa Tribe have something to celebrate this weekend – new contracts. The two 19-year-olds have both earned rookie deals for the next two seasons.

Fresh from their recent World Championship exertions in Antwerp, Welsh gymnasts Ruby Evans and Poppy-Grace Stickler were back in action over the weekend – and helped inspire Clwb Cymru Caerdydd to an historic British club triumph. The Great Britain pair, along with team mates Mali Morgan, Evie Flage-Donovan and Ellie Lewis, were crowned Women’s Artistic British Team champions in Stoke-on-Trent yesterday.

Gary Carlisle is a man on a mission at Whitchurch Hockey Club and is not afraid to spell it out. “If I can get one of our teams – men’s or women’s – eventually up into the National League, then I have done my job,” says the club’s recently appointed director of hockey. That’s a tough assignment, given that Whitchurch men’s first team currently play in the competitive second tier West Regional Premiership and the women’s firsts – known as Whitchurch Saints – are in Premier 1 of the South Wales Women’s League.

Cardiff Met student and professional cricketer Bhavya Doshi has arrived in Wales, just as the eyes of the cricket world are focussed on his home nation of India. As the hosts prepare to take on Pakistan, this is how he’s coping with missing out on the party.