Swansea’s Sporting Heroes Honoured at Awards

A RUGBY mad Bishop Gore Comprehensive school pupil and a woman who’s trained in Penlan Leisure Centre over 1,500 times in the last ten years were among the winners at the annual Swansea Sports Awards.

Tom Founds (pictured) won the Young Volunteer of the Year category and Julia Mahoney was named Active Swansea Member of the Year in the awards ceremony at Penyrheol Leisure Centre.

Tom, who’s sitting his GCSE exams in the summer, still finds time to help out with Bishop Gore’s rugby teams and coach at both Graigfelen Primary School and Mumbles under 13s too. Julia, a member of Penlan Leisure Centre since 2005, attends three to four times a week. She also leads a group known as the ‘A-Team’ that’s made up of members who train at the same time.

Swansea Council’s sports development team organises the Swansea Sports Awards. Commonwealth Games gold medal swimmer Jazz Carlin won Sportsperson of the Year, Chloe Davies won Junior Disabled Person of the Year and David Smith won Senior Disabled Sportsperson of the Year.

Chloe was the youngest competitor at the 2012 London Paralympics. She holds British records in the 100-metre backstroke, 200-metre backstroke and 200-metre individual medley. David, also a Paralympian, reclaimed his position as number one in the boccia BC1 world rankings in January 2014. He also won gold in the Boccia World Championships BC1 category in Beijing last September.

Pontlliw girls football won Primary School of the Year and Bishopston under 16s hockey won Secondary School of the Year.

Cllr Mark Child, Swansea Council’s Cabinet Member for Wellbeing and Healthy City, said: “The annual Swansea Sports Awards evening was a great opportunity to honour our sporting heroes as well as our stars of the future, coaches, schools and volunteers.

“As a city of sport, Swansea is enjoying an unprecedented profile because of the continued success of the Swans, the number of Ospreys in the Welsh squad and the hosting of major events like the IPC Athletics European Championships last summer.

“Sport in Swansea isn’t just about our elite performers, though. The annual awards also give us a chance to celebrate the contributions of people to grass-root sport whose countless hours of hard work behind the schemes sometimes goes unnoticed.

“Everyone involved in sport in Swansea deserves huge praise.”

Other winners on the night included Volunteer of the Year Wendy Pressdee, Community Coach of the Year Mitchell Brown, Performance Coach of the Year Shelley Pace, Junior Sportsman of the Year Daniel Jervis and Junior Sportswoman of the Year Hannah Brier. The Swansea Gymnastics Junior Boys Team won the Junior Club Team of the Year category.