LEGENDS OF WELSH SPORT: BOB MORGAN
Wednesday, 10 January
BBC One Wales, 10.40pm
A brand-new series of Legends of Welsh Sport looks back on some of the greatest and most inspiring sportsmen and women Wales has produced. This episode looks at the highs and lows of Wales’ most successful diver, Bob Morgan, including an incident that would help change the face of British sport forever.
From the cliffs of the south Wales coastline to Commonwealth and Olympic Games, from training with future film star Jason Statham to becoming a show diver at an amusement park, Bob Morgan, who now works as an estate agent in Llantwit Major, offers a first-hand personal account of his extraordinary career.
Morgan’s diving career began at an early age at the Empire Pool in Cardiff. He excelled straight away – within six months, he had learned a set of dives that would earn him a Welsh Championship as a junior, and he would win the British Diving Championships in Crystal Palace at 14.
In this programme, Morgan recounts his journey through five Commonwealth Games, the first being 1982 in Brisbane at the age of 15, and four Olympic Games, starting at 17 in Los Angeles. In 1990, he would become Wales’ first gold medal winning diver in the Commonwealth Games, and also won silver and bronze during his career.
At the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Morgan made headlines when he and fellow British diver Tony Ally were caught selling their Team GB kit at the side of the road to make extra money. This would shine a light on the lack of funding that British sports and its athletes were receiving. Soon after, funding created from the proceeds of the National Lottery was provided. Although it would come too late to benefit Morgan’s own career, the funding helped transform the landscape of British sport, boosting Team GB’s performances in the process with each successive tournament.
The episode is available to view on iPlayer here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001ttpb/legends-of-welsh-sport-series-3-2-bob-morgan
