Welsh Medal Winners Welcome Home

Photo of Sean Nicole Cooke's cousin copyright Paul Thomas 2008Today was a great day for Wales in Cardiff Bay – the return of the Wales Olympic gold medal winners Nicole Cooke, Tom James and Geraint Thomas and silver medal winner David Davies.

I must admit that I have a bit of a soft spot for Nicole Cooke since she comes from close to where I live.  She’s from Wick in the Vale of Glamorgan.  The welcoming crowd in Cardiff Bay today seemed to agree – the biggest cheer was saved for Nicole though the organisers had arranged for her to be presented to the crowd last of all.

The photo at the top is of Nicole’s cousin Sean who came down to Cardiff to welcome her.

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Nicole Cooke – Olympics Gold Medal Winner from Wick

Nicole and her Gold MedalLocal girl Nicole Cooke has done us proud winning a Gold Medal in the Beijing Olympic games.  Nicole is from Wick in the Vale of Glamorgan. Nicole snatched victory in the Women’s Cycling Road Race against strong competition.

Best of luck in Wednesday’s time-trial.

Update 14th August 2008: Unfortunately Nicole came in 15th in the time-trial. Never mind!

Is the Celtic Manor a “Monolith” ?

Celtic ManorAn interesting point of view from Kevin McCloud on the Celtic Manor Hotel – Celtic Manor is ‘huge monolith’. I must admit that when I first saw the newly built Celtic Manor resort it towered above the old Celtic Manor hotel and the M4 motorway. As time has gone by I guess that we have become used to it’s brooding presence. When you are within the hotel and it’s environs it feels like a pretty impressive place. Visually, I have to agree with Mr McCloud that it’s not that pretty, but as the venue of the 2010 Ryder Cup it’s impressive.

British Drift Championships at Llandow

We visited the British Drift Championships at Llandow Circuit yesterday. I was surprised to see that one of the top drivers is Shane Lynch of Boyzone fame. The photo shows Shane drifting around the first bend. Nice car! It’s a Skyline R33 GTS-T. The photo was taken by Kee. Have a look at his Flickr photos, there are some other good shots of some of the other cars there.

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