5. 5. Statement: The Rio Olympic and Paralympic Games Homecoming 2016

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:34 pm on 27 September 2016.

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Photo of Ken Skates Ken Skates Labour 4:34, 27 September 2016

Can I thank the Member for her valuable contribution and recognise that Hannah Blythyn, I think, represents an area that probably has the highest concentration of Olympic medals currently in Wales? The success of Sabrina and Jade is quite astonishing and I’d like to send my congratulations direct to them as well. I know how important Jade Jones’s victory was to the community of Flint; I was present for part of the day. I know that the Member has greater staying power than me—you were present for the duration of Jade’s fights at Mountain Park Hotel in Flint. It was an incredible occasion that saw hundreds of people—a phenomenal number of young people—celebrating, let’s face it, an icon of the local area competing at the highest level. As well as friends and family and, I’m in no doubt, strangers to Jade, there were also people from the local taekwondo club and also her former coach. It may be perhaps an appropriate visit for us—myself and the local Member—to visit the club that Jade learned taekwondo at and at which now there is, I know, a huge number of young people taking up the sport.

Neil McEvoy urged the Welsh Government to recognise sports heroes—we will do that, not just through the Year of Legends, but on an ongoing basis. But I’d also urge Neil McEvoy to learn from Hannah Blythyn, who has represented her constituency superbly by ensuring that the castle in Flint, one of the most important elements of the historic environment in north-east Wales, was turned gold in recognition of Jade Jones’s phenomenal success. I think it’s essential that Government, that society in general, embraces the success of our sporting heroes, not just as a motivating factor for people to be more physically active, but also as a means of bringing people together—to unite people during a period when we are often fractious.