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A 16-year-old athlete from Caerphilly is set to realise a lifelong dream after being selected to represent Wales at the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

Ellie Bowen, who turns 17 next month, has been named in the Welsh athletics squad and will compete in the seated shot put and discus events.

The Cardiff Archers athlete, coached by Josh Clark, is among 18 track and field athletes selected by Team Wales and is one of ten making their Commonwealth Games debut.

Ellie said being chosen to wear the Welsh vest was the fulfilment of an ambition she has held since childhood.

“Being selected for the Commonwealth Games is an amazing achievement because it’s been a dream since I was young to represent my country,” she said.

Ellie’s journey into sport began in 2018 after she attended a Disability Sport Wales open day in Cardiff. There, she was approached by the late Anthony Hughes, who was then performance director at Disability Sport Wales.

“He asked me if I would like to try wheelchair racing and I did that for around two years and won a bronze and two gold medals at my first competition,” she said.

But, just before the Covid pandemic took hold, Ellie gave seated shot put, discus, and javelin a go.
She said: “lockdown happened so everything stopped but when I was able to go back to training, I started throwing as my main sport because I really enjoyed it.

“I did my first competition in July 2022 and won three golds for seated javelin, discus, and shot put and won a trophy for best performance.”

Despite her success, Ellie admits there were moments when she considered stepping away from the sport.

“In 2024, I felt like giving up but I pushed through and kept going because I have always been determined to follow my dreams in doing what I love,” she said. “So, I continued training hard and ended up having my breakthrough performance at the School Games and winning gold.”

At just 16, Ellie has already travelled to Dubai to secure her international classification and has recorded throws of 7.10m in the shot put and 20.02m in the discus.

Away from athletics, she also enjoys playing wheelchair basketball.

Welsh Athletics chief executive James Williams said the Commonwealth Games represented a special occasion for Welsh athletes.

“The Commonwealth Games is the only opportunity that our athletes compete as Wales at the very highest level,” he said.

“We’re also really looking forward to watching ten of our athletes make their first-ever Commonwealth Games experience and we can’t wait for Wales to get behind them.”

The Glasgow Games will feature a strong Welsh athletics team, including Paralympic champions Aled Davies and Olivia Breen and sprint star Jeremiah Azu, but one of the youngest members of the squad will be hoping to make her own mark when she steps into the throwing circle in Scotland this summer.

S4C will be broadcasting live coverage of the Commonwealth Games for the first time, after the BBC passed on the opportunity to screen the games. The corporation has said it was “unable to match” sports channel TNT’s bid to screen the games to an English language audience.

Coverage will run from Friday July 24 to Sunday August 2, featuring ten days of competition across ten sports and a record-breaking Para sport programme, with 47 medal events across six disciplines.

The tie-up of Welsh language broadcast rights means viewers in Wales can follow every moment of the national team’s journey of the 23rd edition of the Commonwealth Games.