LAST week Newport officially accepted the British Transplant Games flag following an excellent event in Birmingham.

We are truly honoured to have been selected to host this prestigious event in the summer of 2019. Newport has an excellent record of hosting sporting events from the Ryder Cup, Velothon, track cycling championships to Olympic and Paralympic training camps – but this event will be something special for the city.

Organised on behalf of the charity Transplant Sport UK, the aim of the games is to raise awareness of and increase organ donation.

The games will include more than 25 sporting and social events and competitions for all abilities, from fishing through to track and field, plus the Donor Run, an inclusive event open to the public. There will also be some new events specially hosted by Newport which we are very excited about!

The athletes involved are inspirational and the games bring with it such an important message. Wales has led the way in the UK in its approach to organ donation introducing deemed in 2015, but there is much more to do to raise awareness of its importance and encourage commitment across the country.

One of the main issues is the need to have those important, but sometimes difficult, conversations with our closest family and friends. We have recently seen an excellent media campaign in Wales highlighting the fact – where the voice of a potential donor is overruled by family members understandably affected by the stress and emotion of their loved one being in such a situation.

Graphically it was very powerful, with the mouth and words literally replacing that of the potential donor, but very effectively reminded us of the need to broach such issues before the worst we can imagine might occur.

There is obviously also the amazingly positive side of organ donation for recipients. The games seeks to raise general awareness of the need for an active and healthy lifestyle to increase transplant life expectancy and really make the most of that second chance.

The games have never been to Newport, and we hope that a legacy of the event will be to encourage greater numbers of Welsh transplant patients to join the games family, and experience the amazing social integration of the event.

You can find out more about organ donation in Wales at organdonationwales.org and look out for more information about the British Transplant Games 2019 on both the games and Newport City Council websites in coming weeks.