A discus thrower who turned to the sport after a career-ending rugby injury has been named in the Team Wales squad for this summer’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
Harrison Walsh, who was born in Swansea and now lives in Neath, is one of 18 track and field athletes selected by Welsh Athletics for the Games.
The 30-year-old goes to Glasgow as no newcomer — he won bronze in the F44 discus at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, and has since added world and European medals to his name.
His route into para athletics began with heartbreak. Walsh was a promising young prop with Swansea RFC when a serious knee injury ended his rugby career and, he was told, might leave him struggling to walk.
He has spoken openly about grieving the career that might have been, and about the physical and mental health challenges he faced before finding a new path through athletics.
Picking up the discus, he rebuilt himself into one of Wales’s leading para throwers.
Selection for Tokyo’s 2020 Paralympics followed, though injury cruelly denied him the chance to compete there. He bounced back to take that Commonwealth bronze in Birmingham, and went on to finish seventh at the Paris Paralympics in 2024.
According to Welsh Athletics, he won his first world medal with bronze at the 2024 World Para Athletics Championships in Japan, and also claimed bronze at the 2021 European Championships in Poland.
For Walsh, though, pulling on the red of Wales at the Commonwealth Games holds a special place.
“It puts all sporting moments in my life into perspective,” he said. “The roots of every performance trace back to me loving sport from a young age, imagining myself wearing the red of Cymru.”
He is now also working towards a place on the podium at the Los Angeles 2028 Paralympics.
Away from the throwing circle, Walsh is a keen artist who has exhibited and sold his work at a London exhibition, and he also builds Lego and plays golf.
He is one of a strong Welsh Athletics contingent heading to Glasgow, with the 18-strong track and field squad between them holding three Commonwealth golds, a silver and three bronze from previous Games — and 10 of them set to make their debut.
The squad is led by familiar names including three-time Paralympic champion Aled Davies, who defends his F42-44 discus title, four-time Games athlete Olivia Breen, and sprinter Jeremiah Azu, the first Welshman to run the 100m in under 10 seconds.
Walsh and the rest of the athletics team will be part of a 114-strong Team Wales competing across 10 sports in Glasgow.
The Commonwealth Games run from 23 July to 2 August, with the athletics taking place at Scotstoun Stadium.
