16-12-2025 Wayne Hartley - Proud to Represent Great Britain
Wayne Hartley was absolutely delighted to be selected to represent his country in this year’s World Transplant Games in Dresden, Germany, having received a kidney transplant aged 20. This followed years of awful UTIs and kidney infections, resulting in one of Wayne’s kidneys being completely damaged and dysfunctional.
Medilink was very proud to support Wayne with a donation towards competing in the event and we caught up with him to ask about his experience at the games in August. “For me, these games were all about the team. Over the last 3 years I have developed bonds with organ and stem cell transplant recipients from all over the UK and these really spurred me to produce my best performances for the team”.
So Wayne, we understand that you took part in a number of events at the games – can you tell us about them? “Yes I can give you an overview of each of the events, starting with the ‘Reason to Give Run’. It was fantastic to run alongside my wife, who had recently donated a kidney to her friend, and raise awareness of the power of organ donation whilst scoping out the course that would be used for the 5k road race the next day!
Next there was the Parade of Nations, which included participants from all over the world marching through central Dresden to raise awareness of the power of organ donation. With music playing, flags waving, people in their team kits and traditional dress, this proved to be a very emotional 3km walk.
My first ‘real’ event was the 5k road race - The Transplant Games have been a big motivation for me to improve my 5k time (and my fitness). There was a really strong field of athletes, and I had to make a decision – either go for broke and try to medal individually or run my race and do what I could to help GB win a team medal. I opted for the latter and paced myself to a PB of 19:30 (my first sub-20-minute 5k), taking 5th place out of the 25 people in my category. The results for the team 5k (fastest 3 male times from each country added together) were in. I was part of this team, and we won gold and the Maurice Slapak Award for the Road Race Team Champions. We had beaten Italy to the gold medal by just 11 seconds, and I was so proud of myself for running the way I did. The highlight of this race though was accompanying our oldest runner, 89-year-old Mike Gibbons, on his final stretch along with other runners from the GB team. Mike ran the entire 5k with a framed photo of his wife (and donor), who couldn't be there with him, around his neck.
My next event was ten pin bowling. Lane conditions were tough, but the camaraderie on the lanes was incredible and I just missed out on third place individually by 6 pins. I bowled better in the doubles, but we came 5th in the men's doubles and middle of the pack in mixed doubles. We had such a fabulous time though and were cheering each other on. The highlight of this event was the little girl bowling next to us. She must have been about 8 years old, and every time she hit pins she got a huge cheer and looked to be having the time of her life! By the end of the session, she was running around getting high 5s from all of us. We finished off with the Baker team event. We played well as a team and won a Bronze medal.
Next on the schedule was the triathlon relay and, for the second time, I was teaming with William Black and we were defending our team triathlon gold from Perth 2023, but this time we had a new swimmer. My team mates got me into a great position, giving me a head start - all I had to do was keep it. It was quite a demanding course with lots of twists and turns, so it wasn't easy to see how close my competitors were. Determined not to let my team down, I gave my best effort over the 5km trail course and managed to keep the lead to clench another team gold. The highlight of the day was the World Transplant Games Federation President taking the time during the medal ceremony to highlight the incredible sportsmanship shown by two athletes who stopped their own race to help a fellow athlete when he got into trouble. We all gave them such a massive cheer in admiration of their sportsmanship. This is what the Games is all about - we push to get the best out of each other, but above all, we look after each other.
The very next day it was the 1500m and my legs were really tired! The race quickly split into three groups: I was in the second group, fighting for third. At the start of the third lap, the athlete in third place started to pull away so I increased my pace a little, but my legs were heavy and I decided it was best to wait and try to catch up later. As the final lap started I decided I needed to start gaining ground and I did, but I had fallen a little too far behind. 5th place stayed at my heels but, with 150m to go, I gave it my all and finished the race strong, emptying the tank, but it wasn't quite enough to catch 3rd place. I finished in 4th and learned some lessons. I was then able to spend the rest of the day supporting my teammates: the highlight of the day was seeing the GB women's 4x100m relay team narrowly defeat a strong German side for gold and break the world record.
Finally it was the 4x400m relay, where the rules changed this year because GB have been so dominant in the relays. Now only the A team from each country is eligible to compete for a spot on the podium. I have been training hard and just managed to earn a spot on the A team. Our B team ran out first and everyone did so well, exceeding what was expected of them. This put the pressure on for me to perform well on the A team. Our first runner ran incredibly and got us in the lead by the first baton pass, our second runner maintained this and by the time the baton came to me, the adrenaline had built. I took the baton and set off fast, I maintained this and ran the fastest 400m I had ever ran and kept us in the lead when I passed the baton to our anchor. He finished well and we won gold with an overall time of under 4 minutes. The crowd was cheering so loudly and the atmosphere was amazing! Taking part in this relay was one of the true highlights of the Games for me. It was the last event and was followed by the circle of life, where everyone came on to the track and held hands before running in to show our togetherness. Here we embraced each other and celebrated our second chance of life.