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BBC News
30-05-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Cardiff Hyrox competition brings extreme fitness craze to Wales
Tens of thousands of people are expected in Cardiff for a gruelling fitness challenge to be held over three days at the Principality is a "fitness racing" event that has become a craze, going viral on social media since the first competition in Germany eight years ago. There are now 200,000 competitors worldwide according to organisers, with the first ever event in Wales starting on Friday. The event is set to include the oldest known participant in the gruelling indoor race of eight 1km (0.62 mile) runs followed by different fitness exercises. "Age doesn't have to be a barrier," said Prof Peter Herbert, 80, from Carmarthen. "Vitality is something we can choose to nurture every day."As the Hyrox craze descends on the capital, roads in the town centre are expected to be busy until after the final on Sunday. Competitors - either professional or everyday fitness enthusiasts - perform eight runs and eight workouts, including 1km on a standing ski machine, 50m sled push and 80m burpee Dylan Jones Evans previously said "tens of thousands" could visit the Welsh capital to take part in the event."What we saw with Hyrox when they went to Glasgow recently was 40,000 people going to the city who wouldn't have gone to Glasgow," he said. Prof Herbert, from University of Wales Trinity Saint David, is a world-renowned fitness expert, academic, and life-long athlete. Undeterred by a knee replacement, he is aiming to be the oldest known competitor to complete the full event. "If I'm able to complete this challenge, I hope it sends a clear message," he said. "Through a commitment to a healthy lifestyle and staying physically active, it's absolutely possible to have the energy, strength, and resilience to enjoy activities that many believe are out of reach after 50. "Whether it's surfing, mountain biking, rowing, swimming, or anything else that brings you joy, age doesn't have to be a barrier." What is Hyrox? Founded in 2017 as an indoor discipline, athletes take part in eight legs, each a 1km run, followed by a fitness exercises competitors are put through include 1km on a standing ski machine, 50m sled push, 50m sled pull, 80m burpee jumps, 1km indoor rowing, carrying a kettlebell 200m, 100m lunges carrying a sandbag, and finally 100 throws and catches of a medicine ball off a wall. World championships are held every year, with contestants taking part in singles and doubles races. The 2024 world championships in France featured a new relay event by sport is closely related to CrossFit, but has different, simpler exercises and prioritises endurance over raw popularity is primarily put down to two things: accessibility and visibility. Hyrox has been designed with the intention of going viral, whether by giving contestants patches instead of medals to wear on their gym bags, or by pushing "training club Tuesdays", getting people to tag gyms that offer top athletes in the sport are doing the event in under an hour. But Hyrox competitor and former Wales rugby player Laura Payne said the race could be geared to all abilities, with some using lower weights, walking the sprints and taking up to three hours to finish."It's quite open and inclusive," said the co-owner of Penarth gym Arth Strength. "If you've not done much fitness you could get by if you did it with a pair," Ms Payne, who has done Hyrox events in Birmingham and London, added."There is 8km of running but spread out a little bit and some of the stations can be made harder or easier." According to Ms Payne, it is a mass participation event like a half marathon, but "less boring" because running is not the only event. The training is mainly around endurance, with hour-long sessions, she said.
Telegraph
21-05-2025
- Telegraph
How Aberystwyth plans to revive the glory days of the British seaside
It was a hub of lead mining and shipbuilding. It boomed again thanks to genteel Victorians taking the seaside air, turning it into the ' Biarritz of Wales'. And, more recently, it provided the backdrop to a genre-defying Welsh noir. The idiosyncratic seaside resort of Aberystwyth, 'Aber' to the locals, pivots around its Norman castle and twin beaches – and maintains an isolated air thanks to its westerly position on Cardigan Bay. Proudly Welsh-speaking, it's now home to the National Library of Wales, the nation's largest arts centre, and bolstered by a lively student population during university term times. But there's also an air of faded grandeur, with some of the pastel-coloured Victorian and Edwardian resort hotels in desperate need of some love. The arrival of the railway in the 1860s transformed the town's fortunes, establishing a thriving coastal resort; the opening of the Royal Pier, the first in Wales, soon followed. The current version is somewhat shorter than its 1865 original after a series of heavy storms, but it retains a kiss-me-quick array of arcade games, attractions and bars. There are green shoots of regeneration, too. The first phase of the wave-crashed promenade's £10.8 million facelift is almost complete, although the introduction of promenade parking charges is a bugbear to locals. The renaissance of the Old College, the grand old Victorian building that first served as the first home of the University of Wales, should be completed by 2027, with a new cultural centre and a four-star hotel. Britain's only statue of Edward VIII, who abdicated, will be restored to its starring role upon reopening. The wider Ceredigion coastline, too, has plenty to offer, forming part of the 870-mile Wales Coast Path. Expect spectacular hiking, tales of smugglers and shipwrecks, and possible glimpses of bottlenose dolphins south towards Cardigan at Mwnt beach. What's it really like? Aber wears its quirks with pride, a tradition celebrated by the author Malcolm Pryce in his detective novel Aberystwyth Mon Amour. There's offbeat charm to the back streets, plus old-school seaside fun, but also stylish cafés and boutiques. It's these contrasts that struck me most of all. For every top-notch café such as the Cabin, or Driftwood Designs, with its cool Cymru souvenirs, there's a Lip-Licking Fried Chicken. And for every dive-bombing seagull after your chips, there are people sitting on the beach, fed by street-food carts, soaking up another glorious Aber sunset. Independent outlets worth checking out include Ystwyth Books, a second-hand seller, or the Bottle & Barrel for a range of Welsh craft ales. And for fans of the television series Hinterland, the original Welsh noir, it's location-spotting heaven. The programme recast the region as the murder capital of Mid Wales and made much of its folkloric back story with ominous inland visits to Devil's Bridge, located at the end of the heritage Vale of Rheidol Railway, and the spookily submerged forest at Borth to the north. What's not to like? Sunbathing is a gritty experience. The beach is more shingle than sand thanks to offshore currents – the sand ends up at Harlech. A promenade stroll is great for sea air, albeit tempered with regular wafts of rotting seaweed. It was captured in 1404 by Welsh folk hero Owain Glyndwr, but destroyed on the instruction of Oliver Cromwell so that it could not be used against him during the Civil War in the 1640s. Do this… Visitors have been strolling along the 1½-mile promenade since the time of Queen Victoria, with the tradition of kicking the iron bar at the end of Marine Terrace for good luck. Constitution Hill, at the top of visitor hub North Beach, offers widescreen bay views and glimpses of the mountains of Snowdonia on a clear day. Take the Aberystwyth Electric Light Railway, the longest electric cliff railway in Britain, to the top and visit the Camera Obscura. For a culture fix, the National Library of Wales maintains the tradition of more books than people in Aber, including the oldest existing Welsh text, the 12th-century Black Book of Carmarthen. It hosts regular events and exhibitions. Eat this… Most people make a beeline for Ultracomida, the excellent deli-café on Pier Street, with its Aladdin's cave of Iberian, French and Welsh foodie treats. But hidden-gem alternatives include the Italian coffee house Agnelli's, a bustling, family-run place for Italian coffees, pastries (try a Sicilian lemon cannoli) and a small lunch menu. Medina is a great place for all-day dining, the north African-motif venue having transformed an old spit-and-sawdust pub. It turns into a popular restaurant by night and the owners also run an open-air kiosk for snacks on the promenade. But don't do this… The Ceredigion Museum, sharing a building with the tourist information centre and the Coliseum Coffee House downstairs, documents Aberystwyth's history against an elegant backdrop of a restored Edwardian theatre. But the museum closes this May for maintenance work, with the Grade II-listed building expected to reopen in 2026/27. It plans to host pop-up displays in the interim. From a local Sean Westlake is the chairman of the Wales Official Tourist Guides Association and based in Aberystwyth. He says: 'Aber has everything you need, from cultural events via shopping to coastal walks. Yet, within 15 minutes, you're lost among waterfalls and mountains, watching the red kites circling overhead. Most of all, Aber has the best sunsets in Wales.' From a tourist Carys Mitchell, 11, and Olivia Mitchell, eight, visiting from Hamilton, New Zealand, are having a day out with auntie Ffion and nanny Vera (Mitchell). They say: 'We're having a day at the seaside, loving the ice creams and arcade games on the pier. We like the different-coloured houses. It looks very different to the North Island back home.' Chris and Jayne Maxwell are visiting from Telford, Shropshire: 'Aberystwyth is our go-to seaside day trip from Shropshire. I've been coming for years on my motorbike, but it looks on the up these days with new investment. Aber took a battering in the 2015 storm but it's cleaner and smarter these days. It's perfect for a sunny day.' Get there Aberystwyth is the terminus for Transport for Wales services with connection to Shrewsbury in two hours and Birmingham New Street in three. By car, take the A44 via Welshpool, and follow the A487 into the town centre. Stay here Gwesty'r Marine Hotel & Spa (doubles from £135 B&B) is a classic seaside hotel a short walk from the train station. Book a sea-view room and the sounds of the waves will lull you to sleep.
The Guardian
30-03-2025
- General
- The Guardian
‘People have walked through here for centuries': the rhythms of the Welsh valleys in pictures
Ken Grant's Cwm: A Fair Country, a collection of nearly 30 years of landscape photography in the South Walian valleys, begins with a moving prologue. It mentions a painting he's known since his Liverpudlian childhood, still sitting above his 92-year-old father's mantelpiece: 'Dapple-bruised Welsh horses, painted in a loose herd, are imagined beneath a sky that promises rain.' From 1998, on commutes from Liverpool to the University of Wales, Newport (where he led a documentary photography degree), he noticed similar horses – completely by coincidence. 'I didn't seek them out at first, but on my drives, I soon got aware that they were there. Sometimes up a valley's road, you'd see packs of 40 or 50.' Some were descendants of animals once used in mining; other herds would have pre-dated industry; either way, they now roam wild and free. Grant's horses sit, lie, nuzzle each other and look directly into his lens. He became struck by the creatures' hardiness in all seasons. 'They're beautiful, observant, built to last – they let things happen around them. They became a loose metaphor for me for thinking about communities in these areas – communities built around a particular purpose which is not active any more in any shape or form, but which carries on, having endured all those upheavals, and the shifts that have taken place in the land.' The horses in Cwm (the name of a mining village Grant photographs and a Welsh word for valley or steep-sided hollow at the head of a valley) act like solid anchors among images of striking environments. Harsh hills, often pillaged by industry, sit behind pale, pastel rows of terrace houses. A photography studio sits in an old building, its front wall soaked with stormwater. An old playground sits quietly alongside the site of a demolished steelworks. There are signs of development – new redbrick houses and road improvement projects – between the battered allotments and ruined buildings. 'It struck me how strongly these roads are built to take people past a place,' Grant says. Moving on from Newport in 2013, he has to-and-froed between Wales and Liverpool ever since, often returning to the same places – like the village of Beaufort, named after a duke who originally owned the land, and Manmoel Common outside Ebbw Vale, high on a ridge, near abandoned quarries. Mid-century Czech photographer Josef Sudek inspired this approach. 'There's a lovely phrase of his – 'rush slowly' – about how you're rewarded by staying with subjects over time, seeing any kinds of changes or shifts, or slow dismantlings or initiations. You're made aware that something's still happening, or you're reminded to find something again.' Other influences include the American photojournalists W Eugene Smith and Robert Frank, and people closer to his experience in Wales, such as West Wales-based photographer Paul Cabuts and photographic historian Ian Walker. The book's subtitle is a nod to Alexander Cordell's bestselling 1959 novel Rape of the Fair Country, about the iron-making communities of Nantyglo and Blaenavon before the Chartist uprisings in Wales. Best known as a photographer of people within places (in series such as New Brighton Revisited and Shankly), Grant talks warmly about those he has met in these communities ('there is a beautiful temperament and decency in these people'). He's also done a project simultaneously in the area about pub football teams ('It's as much about football as it is about men navigating being part of something that their dads were part of'). The only people we see in Cwm are walkers, on the edges of frames, often in startling landscapes. 'People use and walk through these places just because they've walked through them for centuries,' Grant says. He also loves the vivid colours of the land, the saturated browns, yellows and greens that partly come from the wetness of the Welsh weather. This resilience and richness, he says, is part of everyday life. 'I've got a lot to be thankful for in Wales,' he adds. He's now living back in Wirral, near his father, but his daughter lives in Cardiff, so he still has a reason to take strange, cross-country diversions. 'The beautiful, gentle landscapes and full-blown mountains in which people still live – it's still incredible, even in the winter, when it's quite tough. But in the time of year we're in now, I love watching how everything comes alive.' Cwm speaks to the same, startling spirit. Cwm: A Fair Country by Ken Grant is published by RRB Photobooks (£45)
The Independent
11-02-2025
- General
- The Independent
Owner of immensely valuable Viking Age ‘Galloway Hoard' of silver and gold finally found
Runic inscriptions on an 1,100-year-old arm ring unearthed in Scotland suggest that the hoard of silver and gold it was buried with belonged to an entire Viking community. The Galloway Hoard, discovered in 2014, has been the subject of mystery with theories suggesting it was likely buried by four prosperous owners based on arm rings inscribed with Anglo-Saxon runes. A new translation of the runes suggests that the hoard of silver and gold was 'the community's wealth' and not owned by any particular individual. 'This is another really interesting and significant development in our understanding of the Galloway Hoard,' Martin Goldberg of National Museums Scotland said. The findings, however, raise questions like what community this was and what circumstances led to its wealth to be buried. 'Some material within the hoard like the pectoral cross and the rock crystal jar made for a Bishop Hyguald would support this being a religious community,' Dr Goldberg said. Researchers analysed runic words inscribed on the curved half of the arm ring. They found that one of the words could be a misspelt form of 'this', pronounced 'dis' like how it would be in parts of modern Ireland. Another word was 'higna', an Old English word meaning community. The full inscription could be translated as 'this is the community's property', with 'higna' used in Anglo-Saxon documents to indicate a religious community. 'There are a number of things which are technically 'wrong' when we compare it with what we know about 'correct' runic writing,' said runologist David Parsons from the University of Wales. 'However, if we think about both spoken and written English today, there are a huge range of regional and idiomatic variations and, if we allow for this, then it becomes possible to accept this as a plausible reading,' he said, calling the latest discovery 'quite compelling'. The Galloway Hoard still holds many secrets. Many of the objects have never been seen before in the British Isles, with some likely travelling thousands of miles to reach Scotland, according to researchers. One of the arm rings has gone on display at the South Australian Museum in Adelaide as part of a new international touring exhibition from 8 February.
The Independent
07-02-2025
- General
- The Independent
Mystery over Viking treasure solved after runic inscription deciphered
Archaeologists have found 'compelling' new evidence as to who might have owned a Viking Age hoard of more than 5kg of gold, silver and other treasures. A newly translated runic inscription has shed light on the Galloway Hoard, considered to be one of the richest collections of Viking-age objects ever found in Britain and Ireland when it was uncovered by a a metal detectorist in Balmaghie, near Kirkcudbright, in 2014. Researchers at National Museums Scotland, which have been studying the hoard, proposed a new translation which suggests the treasure belonged to everybody. A runic inscription on one of its silver 'ribbon' arms has been deciphered to reveal it reads: 'This is the community's wealth/property.' Martin Goldberg from the museum said: 'This is another really interesting and significant development in our understanding of the Galloway Hoard. The idea that the wealth this hoard represents would be communally held is fascinating. 'It does still leave us with unanswered questions around the circumstances in which a community's wealth would come to be buried, and also which particular community. 'Some material within the hoard, such as the pectoral cross and the rock crystal jar made for a Bishop Hyguald, would support this being a religious community.' Previous theories suggested it was buried by four owners based on the four arm rings inscribed with Anglo-Saxon runes. Three of the inscriptions feature Old English name elements, but the fourth and longest inscription has remained indecipherable as there is no recognisable direct translation. Researchers had long struggled to make sense of the runic inscription carved inside the curved half of the arm ring, which read 'DIS IS IIGNA F'. They made a breakthrough when they realised that it may well be 'technically 'wrong''. They explained the word 'IIGNAF' was the main problem as it didn't correspond to any language spoken in early medieval Britain or Ireland. When they discovered the final rune, F, was marked with punts or dots, either side, they understood the name of the rune itself - 'feoh', meaning wealth or property, unlocked a new translation. The inscription 'IIGNA' could be interpreted as the Old English word 'higna', which had been used elsewhere in Anglo-Saxon documents to allude to a religious community, with the first letter spelt in an unusual, but understandable way. The word 'DIS' also seemed to be misspelled, but interpreted it to mean 'this' with the 'Th' sound being pronounced with a 'D'. Despite these mistakes, the researchers believe the full translation reads: 'This is the community's wealth/property.' Runologist Dr David Parsons, from the University of Wales, said it was a 'difficult and unusual inscription', calling the proposed translation 'challenging'. The runologist, who had previously translated other inscriptions from the hoard, added: 'There are a number of things which are technically 'wrong' when we compare it with what we know about 'correct' runic writing. 'However, if we think about both spoken and written English today, there are a huge range of regional and idiomatic variations and, if we allow for this, then it becomes possible to accept this as a plausible reading. 'And in the context of what [we] can deduce about the Galloway Hoard. it becomes really quite compelling.' This finding concludes a three-year research project called Unwrapping the Galloway Hoard, supported initially by the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council. Chairperson Christopher Smith said: 'It has been fascinating to see the succession of significant discoveries over the life of the Unwrapping the Galloway Hoard project, from the exotic origins of some of its star pieces to the presence of named individuals and now this latest exciting discovery.' The arm ring will next be displayed at the South Australian Museum in Adelaide as the hoard goes on an international touring exhibition titled Treasures of The Viking Age: The Galloway Hoard, which opens on Saturday.
