By Ian Adcock
Jamie Baulch, who won silver in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics as part of the men’s 4×400 metre quartet, will be one of our guests at the driving day on 19 June.
His talent for running was spotted by his headmaster, Eric Atkins at a school sports day at Henllys Junior School in Newport. On joining Newport Harriers, Jamie’s talent shone through and he never looked back making his debut for the GB and NI team at a junior event in Salamanca, Spain, in 1991 winning the 200 metres and breaking the Welsh record simultaneously.
Five years later he was selected for the Olympic squad where he won his silver medal. With his peroxide dreadlocks he was one of the characters in international athletics, becoming World Indoor Champion in 1999 and he still holds the British Indoor record over 400m set in 1997.
Jamie won 11 medals at Olympic Games, World and European Championships and Commonwealth Games.
He recently campaigned for his team’s World Championship Gold medals from 1997 to be presented to the 4x400m quartet including Iwan Thomas, Roger Black and Mark Richardson after a 13 year wait. This followed the disqualification of the USA team after Antonio Pettigrew admitted doping in 2007.
Since retiring in 2005 he has starred in several reality shows including ITV’s Dancing on Ice Goes Gold last year.
Our thanks go to WGMW friend, Stuart Dyble for arranging Jamie’s attendance.
