Ron Jones helped the British 4 x 110 yards relay squad equal a world record, he captained the British athletics team at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico and he won a medal for Wales at the Commonwealth Games. In fact, in 1962 he won two relay bronze medals at major championships at the European Championships in Belgrade and Commonwealth Games in Perth. He won 12 Welsh sprint titles between 1956-1960 and took part in nine major championships – 4 Commonwealth Games, 3 European Championships and 2 Olympic Games. He retired at the end of the 1970 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh a month short of his 36th birthday. He won 31 British international vests.
In 1969, at the age of 34, he became only the third Welshman to win the 100 metres title at the AAA Championships, following Fred Cooper (1898) and Berwyn Jones (1963), and he made the Welsh sprint record his own property. He set his first Welsh 100 metre record with a hand-timed 10.5 secs in 1959, beating the 10.6 set at the 1948 Olympics by Ken Jones. He held the Welsh automatically timed 100 metres record for an incredible 27 years, until Colin Jackson beat it with 10.29 secs in 1990.
But perhaps he is best remembered for being one of the quartet as Britain’s men equalled the 4 x 110y world record at the White City Stadium on 3 August, 1963. Along with Peter Radford, David Jones and fellow Welshman Berwyn Jones, the team ran 40.0 sec to beat the USA and earn their small part in British athletics history.
Outside of athletics, he became Chief Executive of Queens Park Rangers in 1976, the first Managing Director at Cardiff City in 1980 and then Managing Director at Portsmouth in 1988. He became governor of the sports charity Sports Aid Cymru Wales in 1997 and was awarded the MBE in the 2001 New Year’s Honours List for his services to sport and charity.
International Championships
1958: qf 100y, 5th 4x110y Commonwealth Games
1962: sf 100y, 3rd 4x110y Commonwealth Games, 3rd 4x100m Europeans
1964: 8th 4x100m Olympics
1966: qf 100y, 4th 4x110y Commonwealth Games, sf 100m, 5th 4x100m Europeans
1968: qf 100m, sf 4x100m Olympics
1969: sf 100m, ht 4x100m Europeans
1970: qf 100y Commonwealth Games
UK Internationals
31 (1959-70)
National Championships
Won AAA 100m 1969, Welsh 100y 1956, 1959, 1963, 1965-8; 220y 1959, 1963, 1965; 100m and 200m 1970
Personal Bests
100y 9.5, 9.76 (1963); 10.3, 10.42A (1968), 200m 21.3 (1963), 21.49 (1967), 440y 49.6 (1960)
Ronald Jones (Athlete and Sports Administrator) Born in Cwmaman on 19 August, 1934
