Wales rugby great Gerald Davies has said he is “dumbstruck” after being awarded a knighthood in the New Year Honours.
The 79-year-old Wales and British and Irish Lions wing has been recognised for services to rugby union and voluntary and charitable service.
“It is an amazing honour,” said the former player, who also scored 20 tries in 46 Tests for his country across his 12-year international career in the 1960s and 1970s, and is among a select group to have won three Grand Slams.
A paralympian, a doctor and a St John Ambulance volunteer are among the other Welsh names to be singled out for an honour, with the King’s 2025 list featuring 58 recipients from Wales in total.
Sir Gerald, originally from Llansaint, Carmarthenshire, played for Cardiff, Llanelli and London Welsh and, after his retirement in 1978, he became a highly-respected administrator in the sport.
He was Lions manager for the 2009 tour to South Africa and also served as Welsh Rugby Union president between 2019 and 2023.
“I am humbled by it and moved by the thought that somebody, somewhere, has thought it worthy of giving me that honour,” he said.
“I feel very emotional about it. I am surprised by it. Words are really quite inadequate to describe it.”
He said he was grateful for the “enormous support” of his wife Cilla and children Emily and Ben, as well as friends and colleagues, adding: “They are constantly at my side in giving me support over the years. It is not something that you achieve entirely on your own.”
He was made a CBE in 2003, which also included recognition for his work off the rugby field.
He said life was now “nice and calm”, but that “rugby will be part of my life forever”.
Sabrina Fortune – who won gold at the 2024 Paris Paralympics in the women’s F20 shot put – said she was “over the moon” to become a Member of the British Empire (MBE).
“I wanted to run around the kitchen and call every single person,” she said.
Fortune, from Mold, Flintshire, is acknowledged as the world’s leading women’s F20 shot putter, having won the world title three times, and has been recognised for her athletic achievement.
The 27-year-old set a new world record in Birmingham in July, as well as in Kobe, Japan.
She then won gold in Paris with her first throw, breaking her world record.
“I was told I’d never amount to anything, that I’d never become anything. So to have people look up to you is an honour,” she said.
When she heard about the MBE she “just wanted to cry”, and said it was important athletes were recognised in the New Year Honours.