Valerie Davies holds the distinction of winning the first medal for Wales at the British Empire Games (now Commonwealth Games) and being part of the first British team to strike gold at the European swimming championships in Bologna in 1927. The future Olympic Games medallist won two silvers and a bronze for Wales in Hamilton, Canada, in 1930.
Swimming was one of seven sports in those inaugural Games and the only one in which women were allowed to compete. Valerie struck silver in the 400 yards freestyle and 100 backstroke, and bronze in the 100 freestyle. From Hamilton she went on to swim for Team GB at the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, where she won two bronze medals.
She had been part of the British 4 x 100 metres freestyle relay team that won the European Championships in 1927, but was not chosen for the Amsterdam Olympic Games a year later. In LA, she narrowly defeated team mate Phyllis Harding to win the bronze medal in the 100 backstroke and added a medal of the same colour in the freestyle relay. Her last major championship was the 1934 British Empire Games in London, where she added yet another bronze medal to her collection.
She learned to swim with the Roath Swimming Club and lived for much of her life opposite the lake. She won her first Welsh swimming title when she was only 11 and by the time she went to the 1927 European Championships at the age of 15 she had notched 15 titles. At the Welsh championships in Porthcawl in 1927 she also won the Welsh women’s diving title/ She was the youngest swimmer at the 1927 Europeans in Bologna. At the 1931 European Championships in Pairs she won a silver medal in the relay.
Valerie Latham (nee Davies – Swimmer) Born in Cardiff on 29 June, 1912; Died in Newport, in August, 2001
