The Castle of Brecon hotel will be the setting tonight for the second annual Brecon & Radnor Express Sports Awards.

Last year was the inaugural event and saw more than 100 people gather at the Wellington Hotel in Brecon town centre to see seven awards handed out to outstanding sportsmen and sportswomen from all over Brecon and Radnorshire.

On that night the star of the show was Brecon paralympic table tennis player Rob Davies. The Rio 2016 gold medal winner not only won the Disabled Sports Star of the Year award but also took the Sportsman of the Year award and gave a brilliantly poignant speech about his sports career after an injury in a rugby game left him confined to a wheelchair.

This year the guest speaker will be Des Lally, the Brecon-based mortgage broker who is coming to the end of his year-long challenge of climbing Pen y Fan 365 times in one year.

Des is now over the 330-mark and barring an unforeseen mishap looks certain to complete the challenge by the end of the month. He is doing it to raise money for Help for Heroes and Cancer Research. During the last year he has walked or run up southern Britain’s biggest mountain almost every day in all weathers and at varying times of the day. He has also met and been accompanied by a wide range of people, including celebrities, groups of schoolchildren and members of the Armed Forces. He is bound to have a wealth of stories to tell and will be sharing them with the guests attending our sports awards.

A buffet dinner has been laid on at the Castle Hotel this evening for all the nominees and their guests and the hotel’s manager, Brecon mayor Manny Trailor, has kindly agreed to present the awards.

As last year the master of ceremonies for the evening will be local man Mark Weller. Mark is a professional emcee who runs his own company, called Ocsid Entertainment. His experience in overseeing such evenings was a big factor in last year being a success and the B&R is extremely grateful for the support he has given to this year’s event already.

At the end of the evening a grand draw will be held in which people who have bought tickets stand a chance of winning one of a number of prizes donated by local businesses. These include a £150 sunglasses voucher from Vision Express, a two-night stay at the Wellington Hotel, a meal for two at Brecon Tap, half a day’s activities with Black Mountains Activities, a tea at Pilgrims Tearooms and a digital alarm clock and radio from Bulwark Radio.

Here are the nominees for this year’s Sports Awards.

Sportsman of the Year

Name: Steve Sebburn (Brecon) Achievements in 2018: Former soldier Steve (pictured below right) represented Great Britain at the Invictus Games in Sydney. He came back with a gold medal in the road cycling time trial and bronze medals in the criterium on the bike and the men’s 1500m at running. His triumph was doubly sweet, coming as it did after the last Invictus Games in Toronto where he missed out on the medals after failling ill. Name: Kieran Marmion (Ireland and Brecon CC). Achievements in 2018: Kieran was part of the all-conquering Ireland squad that won rugby’s RBS 6 Nations tournament and defeated New Zealand in the autumn. In the summer when Kieran was not playing rugby, he occasionally turned out for Brecon CC in some of their cricket matches. Name: John Kenchington (Brecon CC) Achievements in 2018: John was selected to represent Wales over-50s cricket team at the inaugural 50+ World Cricket Cup in Australia and won the man of the match award in the match against Canada. Name: Chaz Davies (Presteigne) Achievements in 2018: Chaz again showed his quality as a motorbike rider with some stunning performances in the World Super Bikes championships. If it hadn’t been for the peerless form of Northern Irishman Jonathan Rea who won his fourth title, Chaz would be the dominant rider in WSB right now. As it was he managed to win two of the 25 races in the series and was regularly on the podium. Name: Tom Marshall (Cardiff AC)Achievements in 2018: After some brilliant running on the track and over cross country during 2017, Tom gained selection for Wales in 1500 metres at the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast. If it weren’t for the dominance of runners from East Africa in his event, the Rhayader runner would certainly have got though to the final.

Sportswoman of the Year

Name: Natalie Powell (Beulah) Achievements in 2018: While Natalie hasn’t hit the heights of 2017 when she was ranked the world number 1 judoka, she is still a strong favourite to retain her B&R Sportswoman of the Year award. Her world ranking has slipped this year but she showed a recent return to form winning a bronze medal at the China Masters in September. Name: Heidi Davies (GB mountain running team and Brecon AC)Achievements in 2018: Heidi won a major mountain running event in Malonno, Italy and helped Britain’s junior mountain running team to a gold medal after several months out with a serious injury. Name: Kathryn Holley (Crickhowell)Achievements in 2018: Kathryn won the World, European and British powerlifting titles in the bench press and is the British record holder. Name: Sara Williams Achievements in 2018: Once again Sara carried the British f lag into the highly competitive arena of French rally racing. After a slow start to the season, she soon put in some fantastic drives and with the final rally of the season to go was within reach of the podium in the Renault Clio class. Although her hopes were dashed by misfortune on the final day, she still did enough to finish the season in the top 10 and as in 2017 was the top female finisher.

Sports Team of the Year

Name: Llandovery RFC Achievements in 2018: The last 12 months have been another very good year for the Drovers. They finished second to Merthyr in the highly competitive 2017-2018 Premiership, lost a tight WRU Cup semi-final game to Newport and after a promising start look a fair bet to finish in the top six in the current 2018-2019 Premiership. They won 22 of their 29 Premiership games last season and have had victories against clubs with a far higher profile and greater history. Name: Builth Wells Golf Junior Team Achievements in 2018: The golf junior team had a fantastic year in 2018 qualifying for a top tournament in Portugal against the best teams in Europe later this month Name: Trecastle YFC Tug of War Club: The men’s and juniors’ teams won first place at the all-Wales tug of war competition at the Royal Welsh Show and the ladies team placed second. At the Welsh Open Trecastle YFC won gold in the ladies’ 560kg and silver in the 520kg, gold in the Junior GENSB, U19 4x4, U23 4x4 and U23 men’s. Junior members of the club were also part of the junior Welsh team that won gold in the junior 4x4, U18 men’s and l a d i e s’ categories.

Young Sports Star (male or female)

Name: Jack Organ (Brecon AC and Gwernyfed RFC U13s). Achievements in 2018: Jack is the Year 7 Welsh Schools Cross Country Champion and won 800m gold at the U13 Welsh Championships. He is also a keen member of Talgarth FC U13s and Gwernyfed RFC U13s. Name: Beth Wood (Christ College, Brecon). Achievements in 2018: Beth plays hockey for Christ College Brecon, the Cardiff & Met Hockey Club and the Wales U18 and senior women’s hockey team. Name: Kyle Davies (Brecon AC and Gwernyfed RFC). Achievements in 2018: Kyle set a new record in his age group for the hammer throw of 49.15 metres in the summer. He is also Welsh junior champion at hammer throwing and recently won the Welsh indoors shot put title. Name: Cerys Mim Evans (Cantref). Nomination reasons: Cerys Mim represented Wales in several gymnastics competitions in 2018 and in December came second in the Welsh Open Championships at Sophia Gardens for her age group. Name: Carys Bufton (Brecon Corries AFC U14s) At 15 years of age Carys is part of the Wales ladies’ football set-up and now trains with Welsh Premiership team Abergavenny Ladies.

Disabled Sports Star (male or female)

Name: Rob Davies (para table tennis). Achievements in 2018: Rob hasn’t hit the heights he did in 2016 when he won gold at the Rio Paralympics or 2017 when he retained his Euro para table tennis title but he is still a formidable member of the British para table tennis team. Name: Steve Sebburn (see Sports Man of the Year nomination). Name: Pauline Wilson (para bowls). Achievements in 2018: After a successful season in 2017, Pauline went on to represent Wales in the para bowls events at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast.

Veteran Sports Star

Name: Tim Davies (Abergavenny CC). Achievements in 2018: In 2018 Tim retained his national veterans mountain bike XC title and came second in his age group in the National Road Race championships on a course at Llandrindod Wells that went past his front door. Name: Peter Owens (Brecon CC). Achievements in 2018: Peter was chosen to tour Portugal with the Wales 0ver 60/70s side in September. The tour took him to the 17th overseas country he has played cricket in during his career. Name: Colin Griffiths (Bwlch). Nomination reasons: Colin, now 72, continued his good form back in October when he took five wickets from 15 overs playing for Wales Over 60s/70s during their tour of Portugal. This was the fifth cricket tour abroad that Colin has taken part in.

Sports Volunteer of the Year Name: Chris Offa (coaches Builth Youth Rugby and Builth Junior Golf). Name: Dai Roberts (coaches Gwernyfed RFC U10s and Brecon AC). Name: Ade Boyde (Brecon Corries AFC junior coach and secretary). Name: Alan Taylor (part of the Brecon Youth rugby coaching set up before switching to coach Brecon RFC’s 2nd team. He also coaches Brecon U11 rugby team and two teams at Sennybridge Junior FC. He helps Terry Dickson coach two U9 teams at Brecon Cricket Club).