Hay Festival Sports Day
After last year's success, Sports Day is back in 2025, on Wednesday 28 May, with conversations between big names in the world of sport.
Join the conversations
As Hay Festival Sports Day returns on Wednesday 28 May, we hear from some of our leading sports stars.
Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson discusses issues of the day in the News Review, Ebony Rainford-Brent tells us How to Read Cricket, American football icon Raymond Chester tells how he brought Black sport to the mainstream in the 1960s, rugby veteran Alix Popham and sports writer Sam Peters discuss concussion, and Paul Sinton-Hewitt shares the origins of the hugely popular ParkRun.
Three Everest summiteers – Jo Bradshaw, Tori James and Rebecca Stephens – lead a walk celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first woman to summit the mountain, and later reconvene with historians Jenny Hall and Kate Nicholson to look at the stories of the women who are part of Everest’s legacy.
After losing the inaugural cricket match last year, the Hay Festival All-Stars team, full of authors, thinkers and the occasional cricket pro, return to face their nemesis, the Hay Town team, umpired once again by actor and author Stephen Fry.
And younger Festival-goers might like to try out fencing in our free workshops with Fencing Cymru, or hear from Paralympic champion, Strictly Come Dancing star and You Can Do Anything! author Jonnie Peacock.
Get active with us
Join our free, drop-in activities around the site, or book for an off-site adventure!
You can also try a variety of free sporting activities on the Festival site throughout the day, such as fencing with Fencing Cymru.