It is still rare, however, to find many examples of athletes who have had careers at the highest level and who then manage to raise to the top of sports administration, which is arguably more competitive and cut-throat than anything they may experience on the pitch, track or in the ring.

The most obvious example of one who has successfully bridged the gap is Thomas Bach, an Olympic fencing gold medallist at Montreal 1976, who spent decades plotting his route to the very top of sports governance by becoming President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Another German, Franz Beckenbauer, captained and coached his country to FIFA World Cup glory in 1974 and 1990, respectively. After that, he led the re-united Germany’s bid to host the 2006 World Cup and headed the Organising Committee.

Beckenbauer was also a prominent member of FIFA’s Executive Committee, but his legacy has been badly tarnished by allegations of corruption and money laundering linked to Germany’s World Cup bid and then Qatar’s successful campaign to host the 2022 World Cup.

In Britain, Sebastian Coe has achieved the remarkable feat of winning an Olympic gold medal, organising an Olympic Games, leading the British Olympic Association and being elected as President of his International Federation, as well as being voted on to the IOC.

Nigel Walker may not have scaled quite the same heights as an athlete as Bach, Beckenbauer and Coe, but he represented Britain in an Olympic Games before switching sports to rugby union and scoring 12 tries in 17 appearances for Wales, earning himself cult hero status. 

Now, after 20 years in various high-profile roles, Walker has been appointed to the top sports job in his country at the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU).

Like most people in the country, Walker could not separate his Welsh identity from 15 red shirts and an oval ball. Rugby is wrapped up in Welsh nationhood unlike any other sport and, even now, binds people together in a way nothing else can.

So, Walker will be distraught at how he has risen to his current position of acting chief executive having been promoted from his previous role as performance director. The WRU chief executive Steve Phillips stepped down at the weekend and it was announced that an external taskforce has been asked to carry out an independent review into accusations of sexism and misogyny,

The allegations had been made on BBC Wales, where Walker had previously worked as head of sport. WRU chairman Ieuan Evans, a former international team-mate of Walker’s, today admitted when they appeared before the Welsh Parliament, the Senedd, that they had been in "denial" over the extent of the problems at the governing body.

"I think in any organisation, especially a large organisation like the Welsh Rugby Union, it's possible for things to happen over a period of time and for people to turn a blind eye and not to address those problems," Walker told the Senedd's Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport and International Relations Committee in Cardiff today.

"So the warning signs have been there for quite some time.

"When it's presented as graphically as it was during that programme, the BBC Wales programme the week before last, it hits you like a 10-tonne truck.

"To be candid, I think as an organisation we've been in denial as to the extent of the problem.

"There have been cases in the past which have been dealt with - in theory dealt with - and people have moved on, and I think each individual case is an indication that there has been a wider problem, but that people have not joined the dots.

"When you see it presented over a 30-minute programme in the way that it was, unless you're going to bury your head in the sand for another six months or 12 months you have to take action and that's the position we're in.

"None of us are proud of the position we're in."

It was less than a year ago, shortly after starting at the WRU, that Walker denied on television that he had seen any examples of sexist behaviour there.

"In the six months that I've been in the Welsh Rugby Union I have seen no cases of that, and if there were I would call it out,” he had told ITV Wales' Face to Face programme. “Because I would be embarrassed to work for an organisation that didn't live up to those sorts of values."

I first met Walker in 1987 shortly after he had achieved, what he described, as the "personal highlight" of his career, winning a bronze medal in the 60 metres hurdles in Indianapolis. At the time, he was working full time in the civil service and fitting eight or 10 training sessions a week alongside Colin Jackson around his job.

Walker had competed in the 110m hurdles at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles as a 21-year-old, but fell in the semi-final, was injured for Seoul 1988 and failed to qualify for Britain’s team at Barcelona 1992. It was after that disappointment he decided to hang up his spikes and play rugby.

“As a Welshman, I’d always had a yearning to play rugby, and had played as a teenager,” he told me in an interview more than 20 years ago. “I knew at that stage that I’d no longer be able to represent Great Britain at the highest level and at 29, it was a question of now or never, so I decided to throw my lot in with my local club Cardiff.”

Within a year, Walker was playing for Wales.

As good a hurdler as Walker was, he will undoubtedly always be remembered best in Wales for what he achieved on the rugby pitch.

"In 1994 we played France at home, after beating Scotland and Ireland," he recalled when we sat down to discuss his career. "I scored the try that sealed the game against France and we went on to play the Grand Slam decider against England. All these years later, people still come up to me to talk about that game."

Walker scored his side’s only try as they lost 15-8 at Twickenham, but Wales still won the Five Nations Championship, as it was then before Italy joined.

After nine years as BBC Wales’ head of sport, Walker joined the English Institute of Sport in 2010 as national director. It was a role he held until 2021 when he joined the WRU.

Walker has pledged to implement whatever measures the independent review recommends. "It will look at the culture of Welsh rugby, including sexism and misogyny, going back to 2017 but could go further back," Walker told the Senedd Committee today.  "We are opening our doors. The review can take any direction the chair wants it to take."

As a sign of the new brush expected to sweep through the WRU, yesterday it announced it has removed the song Delilah from its Principality Stadium choirs' playlist.

Sir Tom Jones' 1968 hit, about a jealous lover stabbing his unfaithful partner, has become a Welsh rugby anthem but will now not be played at the Principality Stadium and not sung by choirs, starting at the opening Six Nations Championship match of the season against Ireland in Cardiff on Saturday (February 4).

Delilah was recorded by Sir Tom in 1968 and reached number two in the charts before going on to become a Welsh favourite among the rugby-loving public, but its place in modern society has been debated in recent years. One line reads, "I crossed the street to her house and she opened the door; she stood there laughing, I felt the knife in my hand and she laughed no more." Critics have claimed that the song glorifies domestic violence.

Walker expects that once the independent review is completed, he will lose his job to be replaced, probably by a female, so it reflects better the communities it is supposed to be representing.

But I have no doubt that Walker will want to bring about progressive and meaningful change to the WRU and, his love of rugby will mean that any personal sacrifice will be worth it to help the sport regain the unique position it has in Welsh society.