At the beginning of 2023 Tomi Roberts-Jones had a choice. He needed major brain surgery to control his epilepsy but it came with the risk that he'd never walk again.
Months away from the Commonwealth Youth Games where he was ready to represent Wales in the Games' first ever para events 17-year-old Tomi went in to Great Ormond Street. The Cardiff teenager, who had been diagnosed as an infant with congenital hemiplegia following a stroke he suffered before he was born, had spent years training for the 100m and long jump.
"As soon as I got into athletics my goal was to either go to the Commonwealth or Paralympics," said Tomi. "They said at Great Ormond Street that I might not be able to walk properly again. I train three times a week and if I don't train it's a bad day. That's the priority – I'm training mad."
The surgery was a success – and for Tomi it was game on with just months left to prepare for the Games. Not to be deterred he worked hard made it to the tournament in Trinidad and Tobago in August with the aim of bringing home a first ever para youth gold medal for Team Wales.
"It has been a wild few months," said Tomi. "It was a really nice team spirit out there and Team Wales had decorated the corridor with Welsh flags. It felt amazing to be one of the first paras to be out in Trinbago and the support out there was really good. I felt the pressure when I was walking down the tunnel onto the track thinking: 'There's no going back now.'"
For Tomi's family the past few months have been an emotional rollercoaster. His mum Wendy said: "Because Tomi had the major surgery at the beginning of the year it was extra special that he was chosen. It was a major decision for Tomi to have that surgery because it could have affected his running quite a bit.
"It's been quite a whirlwind to be honest and it's hard to comprehend or put into words how we felt. Tomi's worked extremely hard since the age of about 10 and to have this opportunity and achievement has been outstanding."
As Tomi ran the T38 100m in Trinidad his family were raising all manners of hell on a campsite in France. Watching a livestream in a caravan from their family holiday just after midnight they shouted and screamed to cheer him on but knew that ultimately Tomi was the one in charge of what happened next.
Tomi's dad Nant said: "Watching him from across the world you're just hoping. In 100m he's only got around 13 seconds to sort it out – it's not as if it's a 5,000m race where you have a bad start but can make it up. There is hardly any clawback time.
"In the semi-final there were three false starts, which I've never seen before. It's the pressure – it's tense, you're on a big stage."
The race started and Tomi set off a little behind his Australian counterparts. Having whittled his time down from 19.51 seconds in 2018 to 16.23 in 2019 then 13.71 in 2022 and 13.39 ahead of the tournament he pushed on and made up the ground between him and the frontrunners – finishing neck and neck.
"It was a very close finish," said Tomi. "There was only about 2/200th of a second in it. I spent 30 seconds waiting to see if I'd won, which was confusing – the times came up and the Australians were watching the screen and they knew before I did but I hadn't seen. The camera was following me but I didn't know that I'd won."
The realisation dawned slowly on Tomi. Wales' first ever para gold medallist at the Commonwealth Youth Games. A personal best of 13.27 seconds. A gold medal to bring back to Cardiff – and to his parents.
"When Tomi was diagnosed at five months we asked whether he would be able to walk and talk and the answer was: 'We'll have to see how it goes.' His life was year-by-year when he was that age," said Nant.
"Each stroke is different so nobody knows how your child is going to develop. From having such a severe stroke he’s a little marvel – a pocket rocket."
Tomi's parents insist they're just the "taxi drivers" with mum Wendy adding: "Tomi has trained since about the age of 10 and loves his sport so it’s all been driven by Tomi’s self-discipline towards his sport. He's never needed any encouragement to engage in sport.
"It's always been from him and driven by him. To see him win gold and reflect back on that time when he was so little, with the uncertainty, it just shows that dreams come true."
Tomi said his friends reacted "very well" to the medal – and confirmed he's already been asked to bring it into school. He also said he wanted to thank his coach Morgan Jones from Disability Sport Wales for all his support and direction as well as the team from Welsh Athletics.
There's no hanging around, though. "The next thing I'm aiming for is the Paralympics," he said. "My 100m time is one second off qualifying for Paris… if I can get the times I can qualify, it’s not too late, but then the next chance is in 2028. From being in sports day at school I never would've thought I'd be winning gold medals."
Tomi's gold was one of 15 medals Team Wales brought home across three sports as they finished ninth out of 71 Commonwealth nations on the medal table. Tyler Melbourne-Smith was the only other gold medallist – in both the 400m and 1500m freestyle swimming – with Tomi's teammate William Bishop winning bronze in the T38 long jump in which Tomi finished fourth.
