County's Olympic links celebrated (From Western Telegraph)

County's Olympic links celebrated

1:30pm Sunday 17th June 2012 in News

Three Pembrokeshire residents with strong links to the Olympic Games have been celebrated.

Janet Llewellyn of Burton, Bobby Brown of Pelcomb, and Richard Palmer CBE, of Llangwm, were guests at a recent reception in County Hall.

Mrs Llewellyn possesses one of only two Olympic bronze medals known to be in Pembrokeshire from the 1948 London Games, the last time the games were held in the UK.

Her father-in-law, the late Billie Llewellyn of Walton East, bred and trained the gelding, Nightbird, which competed in the British showjumping team. The team finished third and Mr Llewellyn was awarded an Olympic bronze medal.

The only other bronze medal from the 1948 Games known to be in Pembrokeshire belongs to the family of the late Frank Donovan from Pembroke Dock. He was a member of the Great Britain football team which finished third.

As an eight-year-old, the second of the reception’s guests, Bobby Brown, watched Frank play in the Olympic tournament and has kept the match-day programmes.

Twelve years later Bobby followed in Frank’s footsteps and represented the Great Britain football team as centre forward in the Rome Olympic Games.

The third guest, P e m b ro k e s h i r e - b o r n Richard Palmer, is one of the country’s top sports administrators.

Mr Palmer was General Secretary of the British Olympic Association (BOA) for 20 years and had the honour of carrying the British flag at the opening ceremony of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. He also carried the Olympic flame last month in the relay.

A board member of Sport Wales, he is currently executive vice-president of the BOA and a director of the British Olympic Foundation.

He was technical director for the London 2012 Olympic bid.

A former teacher at the old Coronation Secondary School in Pembroke Dock, Mr Palmer has attended eight Olympic or Common-wealth Games as Chef de Mission.