Pembrey Country Park is a country park on the coast of South Wales, located near the village of Pembrey, Carmarthenshire, and the town of Llanelli.
Pembrey Country Park consists of some 500 acres (200 ha) of parkland. Its southern edge is formed by the 8 miles (13 km) long Cefn Sidan beach. The park contains visitor attractions such as ski slopes, adventure play areas, a miniature railway, and mountain bike trails. [1]
The land which the park is located served industrial uses in the 20th century; railway lines, World War II bunkers and pillboxes still remain. [2]
The park hosted the start of the 2018 Tour of Britain cycle race, featuring a peloton of riders including reigning and former Tour de France champions Geraint Thomas and Chris Froome. [3]
Beach Break Live is a music festival which was first held at the park in 2010, [4] having been held at other venues previously. The festival is aimed at a student audience. [5] The event is organised by a pair of entrepreneurs who secured backing from Peter Jones on TV show Dragon's Den. [6] About 12,500 students attended the first event at Pembrey Country Park in 2010. [4]
Carmarthenshire is a county in the south-west of Wales. The three largest towns are Llanelli, Carmarthen and Ammanford. Carmarthen is the county town and administrative centre. The county is known as the "Garden of Wales" and is also home to the National Botanic Garden of Wales.
Llanelli is a market town and community in Carmarthenshire and the preserved county of Dyfed, Wales. It is located on the Loughor estuary and is the largest town in the county of Carmarthenshire. The town is 11 miles (18 km) north-west of Swansea and 12 miles (19 km) south-east of Carmarthen. The town had a population of 25,168 in 2011, estimated in 2019 at 26,225. The local authority was Llanelli Borough Council when the county of Dyfed existed, but it has been under Carmarthenshire County Council since 1996.
Burry Port is a port town and community in Carmarthenshire, Wales, on the Loughor estuary, to the west of Llanelli and south-east of Kidwelly. Its population was recorded at 5,680 in the 2001 census and 6,156 in the 2011 census, and estimated at 5,998 in 2019. The town has a harbour. It is also where Amelia Earhart landed as the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. Nearby are the Pembrey Burrows sand dune and wetland system, forming a country park, and the Cefn Sidan sands. Its musical heritage includes Burry Port Opera, Male Choir and Burry Port Town Band.
Cefn Sidan, translated from Welsh, means "silky ridge". This long sandy beach and its dunes form the outer edge of the Pembrey Burrows between Burry Port and Kidwelly, facing southwestwards over Carmarthen Bay in South Wales. Cefn Sidan beach is backed by dunes, salt marshes, Pembrey Forest and the Pembrey Country Park.
Pembrey is a village in Carmarthenshire, Wales, situated between Burry Port and Kidwelly, overlooking Carmarthen Bay, with a population of about 2,154 in 2011. The electoral ward having a population of 4,301. It is in the community of Pembrey and Burry Port Town.
Geraint Howell Thomas, is a Welsh professional racing cyclist who rides for UCI WorldTeam Ineos Grenadiers, Wales and Great Britain. He is one of the few riders in the modern era to achieve significant elite success as both a track and road rider, with notable victories in the velodrome, in one-day racing and in stage racing. On the track, he has won three World Championships, and two Olympic gold medals, while on the road he won the 2018 Tour de France becoming the first Welshman and third British rider to win it.
Christopher Clive Froome [kɹɪs fɹuːm], is a Kenyan-British professional road racing cyclist who currently rides for UCI ProTeam Israel–Premier Tech. He has won seven Grand Tours: four editions of the Tour de France, one Giro d'Italia (2018) and the Vuelta a España twice. He has also won several other stage races, and the Vélo d'Or three times. Froome has also won two Olympic bronze medals in road time trials, in 2012 and 2016, and took bronze in the 2017 World Championships.
Peter Robert Kennaugh MBE is a Manx former professional racing cyclist, who rode professionally between 2010 and 2019 for Team Sky and Bora–Hansgrohe. In 2012 he won the gold medal as part of the Great Britain Team Pursuit team at the 2012 Summer Olympics, becoming the first Manxman in 100 years to win gold. On 5 April 2019, he announced that he was taking an indefinite break from professional cycling to focus on his mental health.
Luke Rowe is a Welsh racing cyclist, who rides for UCI WorldTeam Ineos Grenadiers.
Ineos Grenadiers is a British professional cycling team that competes at the UCI WorldTeam level. The team is based at the National Cycling Centre in Manchester, England, with a logistics base in Deinze, Belgium. The team is managed by British Cycling's former performance director, Sir Dave Brailsford. The company Tour Racing Ltd. is the corporate entity behind the team in all its iterations, which in line with cycling practice adopts the name of their current primary sponsor.
Richard Julian Porte is an Australian former professional road bicycle racer who competed as a professional from 2008 to 2022. His successes include wins at 8 World Tour stage races: Paris–Nice in 2013 and 2015, the Volta a Catalunya in 2015, the Tour de Romandie in 2017, the Tour Down Under in 2017 and 2020, the Tour de Suisse in 2018 and the Critérium du Dauphiné in 2021. In Grand Tours, he won the young rider classification at the 2010 Giro d'Italia, his first year at UCI ProTour level, and finished on the podium of the 2020 Tour de France, but was also frequently hit by illnesses and injuries.
The 2012 season for Team Sky began in January at the Tour Down Under and ended in October at the Tour of Beijing. As a UCI ProTeam, they were automatically invited and obliged to send a squad to every event in the UCI World Tour. The team took a total of 47 victories in the season with the most notable being Bradley Wiggins' overall victory in the Tour de France. Wiggins (2), Mark Cavendish (3) and Chris Froome also took stage victories in the event, with Froome finishing second to Wiggins in the overall standings.
Tom Dumoulin is a retired Dutch professional road bicycle racer who last rode for UCI WorldTeam Team Jumbo–Visma. He has won the Giro d'Italia and nine stages across the three Grand Tours, five medals in three different World Championships and two Olympic silver medals.
Simon Philip Yates is a British professional road and track racing cyclist who currently rides for UCI WorldTeam Team Jayco–AlUla. His twin brother is Adam Yates, who is also a professional cyclist. He won the gold medal in the points race at the 2013 Track Cycling World Championships. Following a doping ban in 2016, he won the young rider classification in the 2017 Tour de France and the general classification in the 2018 Vuelta a España. Yates has also won multiple stages at each of cycling's three grand tours.
The 2017 Tour de France was the 104th edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tours. The 21-stage race took place across 3,540 km (2,200 mi), commencing with an individual time trial in Düsseldorf, Germany on 1 July, and concluding with the Champs-Élysées stage in Paris on 23 July. A total of 198 riders from 22 teams entered the race. The overall general classification won by Chris Froome of Team Sky, his third consecutive victory and fourth overall. Rigoberto Urán (Cannondale–Drapac) and Romain Bardet finished second and third, respectively.
The 2018 Tour de France was the 105th edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's three Grand Tours. The 3,351 km (2,082 mi)-long race consisted of 21 stages, starting on 7 July in Noirmoutier-en-l'Île, in western France, and concluding on 29 July with the Champs-Élysées stage in Paris. A total of 176 riders from 22 teams participated in the race. The overall general classification was won by Geraint Thomas of Team Sky. Tom Dumoulin placed second, with Thomas's teammate and four-time Tour winner Chris Froome coming third.
The 2019 Tour de France was the 106th edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's three Grand Tours. The 3,365.8 km (2,091 mi)-long race consisted of 21 stages, starting in the Belgian capital of Brussels on 6 July, before moving throughout France and concluding on the Champs-Élysées in Paris on 28 July. A total of 176 riders from 22 teams participated in the race. The overall general classification was won for the first time by a Latin American rider, Egan Bernal of Team Ineos. His teammate and 2018 Tour winner Geraint Thomas finished second while Steven Kruijswijk came in third.
The 2018 UCI World Tour was a competition that included thirty-seven road cycling events throughout the 2018 men's cycling season. It was the tenth and final edition of the ranking system launched by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) in 2009. The competition began with the opening stage of the Tour Down Under on 16 January and concluded with the final stage of the Tour of Guangxi on 21 October. Belgium's Greg Van Avermaet was the defending champion.