In his younger sporting days Lewis Davies was well- known as a free-scoring striker with Fishguard Sports as well as a powerful Centre and Back Rower with Fishguard & Goodwick RFC and Pembrokeshire Schools -but a few years ago he sustained a serious facial injury which saw him with a damaged eye socket and the loss of sight in the eye for a while. 
 
But happily, that is now behind him and in the intervening time he has joined the SAW Gym in Haverfordwest to try and regain his previous fitness levels - and discovered a new sport for him in powerlifting! 
 

Memorable experience – after a challenging trip to get there! 

 
Since then, he has become totally absorbed in this challenging sport and has recently returned from a memorable trip to Sun City, in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he represented Wales in the Commonwealth Power Lifting Championships - and is already back in action, working hard on his fitness, strength and skill levels so that he can be even better prepared for the next competition, which will be held in Canada in two years’ time. 
 
With regard to those championships, Lewis qualified on the back of good results at competitions in the UK - and finished in eighth place from 30 nations. 
“I wasn’t entirely happy with that but I only had a short time to acclimatise since I could only spare a short time from work to go to South Africa, so practise time was very limited, to say the least! 
 
“I only flew out 2 days before I was due to compete and it was a very uncomfortable journey on a plane too small to cater for 12-hour flights but I had no time to change my arrangements and I am already planning my next entry for the Commonwealth Games in two years’ time in Canada, which I have already promised myself will see a big improvement in terms of results. 
 

Huge strides already made – in a relatively short time 

 
A measure of how much Lewis has already improved can be gauged from the fact that when he set out his first recorded personal best contained lifts of 240 kgs in the squat, 132.5 kgs in the bench press and 250kgs in the dead lifts for a combined total of 622.5kgs, which he was immensely pleased about at the time.  
 
And now, barely two years on, he has pushed these PBs to 280kgs (Squat), 155kgs (bench press) and 277.5kgs for the deadlift (in individual competitions). But his highest total in competition so far being in the 2024 Home Nations in Scotland for Wales is 702.5kg Total. An outstanding increase of over 80kgs or just over 12 stone-plus to us old-timers still not attuned to metric weights! 
 
He is very keen to increase these totals in the near future, and is highly motivated to become the strongest he can be. 
 

Real reward for hard work and commitment 

 
Ask Lewis about his enhancement of these weights and he would say, 
“It’s simple really; I’ve put in a tremendous amount of work with regard to my fitness whilst improving my techniques by constant repetitions - and amazing support from SAW Gym team mates Ieuan, Jay, Helen, Chloe and Drew. 
 
“At SAW, the likes of Chloe Hood, who was herself a champion weight lifter before becoming a top coach, has also been a great inspiration with her encouragement because she always seems to be there for us! 
 
“Then there’s also my personal coach Tom Morgan (TM Performance), who works in Cardiff, but he spends a lot of time studying my videos on training and making the small changes that are now vital for me to really improve even more. 
 

Other sports 

 
In football, Lewis played as a striker with Fishguard Sports and from the time he was a nipper he regularly scored a shed full of goals every year. 
 
Going back to his other sports Lewis lived and breathed rugby, and he told us,  
“I had started out with Fishguard & Goodwick as young as i can remember being coached by the likes of Nigel Roach, followed by Youth, where I was coached by a character named Jonathan ‘JJ’ Jones, the local junior school head master, and with another excellent coach in Jonathan Llewellyn as I played regularly for Pembrokeshire Schools through the age groups.” 
 
And his skills took him even further than in football because he eventually played for Scarlets West and “Welsh Academicals”. He then attended the University of South Wales in Treforest, near Pontypridd, and initially played there for the University’s 1st and 2nds squad. 
 
But then he moved up to Welsh Championship Level as a back rower and loose-head prop with Bedwas, a village near Caerphilly, which had forced its way to that high level, where the skill levels were enormous but the physical stuff even tougher, especially in the front row, which was a real war of attrition! 
 

A very worrying time for Lewis 

 
But then a huge problem arose two and a half years ago which caused Lewis to have to totally rethink his sporting interests, when he was playing rugby for Fishguard and Goodwick Firsts, he had a clash of heads badly damaged his eye socket. He took a break from Rugby and played his first and last game back for Fishguard and broken his eye socket and gave him a detached retina as an extra problem because he was unable to see out of that eye for four months. 
 
“It was a very scary time,” admitted Lewis, “and I knew that even if my sight came back, which it did, it would be unwise to play contact sports again”. 
 

Decided to get fit again 

 
“It was a body blow but after coming to terms with it in rehab I decided I would go back to keep fit at SAW, where I had trained when I was a 15 year old, and received every encouragement from Thomas George who was his previous coach.  
 
“I have since become totally focused on power-lifting and train four evenings a week, mainly in Haverfordwest but also in Fishguard Leisure Centre because it is near to home. 
 

And finally . . . 

 
“So now I’m concentrating on a planned programme to enhance my progress before Canada comes round in two years, where my aim is another qualification as part of a strong Welsh team, hopefully with my three pals included as well - and I now know what to expect, especially with regard to the build-up preparations.
 
My next international competition will be in Luxemburg for the Small Nations Competition, once again competing for Wales on the 1st of March.”
 
Chat to Lewis Davies and it is easy to see his determination to reach his very best level - and we at PembrokeshireSport.co.uk wish him every success after his set-backs, because he would be a very proud Pembrokeshire Man if he could step on the podium in North America in two years’ time!