Howard Davies

The year before going to the 1968 Mexico Olympics, 400 metres runner Howard Davies enjoyed a memorable year by winning the British Universities 440 yards title, being runner-up to Tim Graham in the AAAs 440, and capturing a silver medal in the 4x400 relay at the Summer Universiade in Tokyo with Mike Hauck, Menzies Campbell, and John Sherwood. A post graduate student at Loughborough College, Davies also competed against a touring combined Harvard and Yale team that year when he won the 220 yards event. In Olympic year, Davies was again second in the AAAs, this time to Martin Winbolt Lewis, when he lost by a mere 1/10th of a second. The two men went to Mexico, but Davies was eliminated in his first-round heat while Winbolt Lewis reached the semi-final.

Newport-born Davies twice represented his native Wales at the British Empire and Commonwealth Games. Firstly, in the 220 and 440 yards at Kingston, Jamaica in 1966 when he failed to progress beyond first round. At Edinburgh four years later, however, he reached the 200m quarter-final and narrowly missed out on a medal in fifth place with the Welsh sprint relay team, 2/10ths of a second behind bronze medallists England.

Personal Best: 400 – 46.72y (1968).