Nigel Walker

Nigel Walker (born 15 June 1963) is a former Welsh track and field athlete and Wales international rugby union player. He is currently National Director at the English Institute of Sport (EIS).[1] He was born in Cardiff.

Walker represented Great Britain and Northern Ireland at the 1984 Summer Olympics in the 110 metres hurdles. In 1992 however, he failed to make the squad for the 1992 Summer Olympics and turned to rugby union. Walker holds the fastest non-winning time for the 200 metre hurdles. At Cardiff in 1991, he ran 22.77 seconds into a 0.3 m/s headwind.

As a rugby player, he played on the wing for Cardiff RFC. Walker made his Wales debut on 6 March 1993 in the five nations match against Ireland. He went on to win 17 caps for Wales, scoring 12 tries and making his final appearance 21 February 1998 against England.

Walker was a participant in Catchphrase, a Welsh learning programme broadcast on Radio Wales in 2000.[2]

There is a long-standing myth that he participated in and won the British version of Gladiators. Walker has confirmed in an interview with WalesOnline that he never took part in the show.[3] He said: "I have corrected it on Wikipedia three times and it keeps coming back up.[3] It’s brilliant. The amount of people that ask me about it and I never applied and I certainly didn’t compete. It’s unbelievable."[3]