Image source, Team WalesByRichard WintonBBC Sport Scotland- Published43 minutes ago
Gethin Jones is getting animated. Agitated almost.
"How do you move a pole vault pole around? And where do you store them? They're massive..."
The BBC Morning Live presenter stretches his arms wide open to emphasise his point, before immediately bouncing into an anecdote about hunting for hotels, then another about the importance of finding good coffee in an unfamiliar city.
The 48-year-old's mind is whirring, and little wonder.
He's spent the past couple of days in Scotland amid a blizzard of seminars, presentations and workshops about subjects he knew precious little about not that long ago. But the former Blue Peter presenter appears in his element.
Sure, TV is fun. But have you ever tried to explain to someone from the Turks and Caicos Islands why representing Wales matters?
The juxtaposition is not lost on Jones, who has taken a week off from his 'day job' on BBC One to be a very different kind of frontman.
Last June, he emerged from a lengthy recruitment process to be named as Wales' chef de mission for this summer's reimagined Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
His role might have been shaped - initially at least - to be primarily ambassadorial, but this is far more than a token appointment or a publicity stunt.
Jones has put in the work. And the enthusiasm for the job pours out of him.
"The dream was to work in sport and and I couldn't have asked for a better start," he tells BBC Sport, resplendent in a black Team Wales polo shirt.
'I wanted to compete for Wales - this is next best thing'
It was an almost-accidental stint helping with media relations for the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in 2018 that set Jones off on this journey.
It led him to study for a masters in sports directorship and use his contacts to spend time with the NFL, with rugby league and with cycling, trying to understand how high-performance sport works.
Then came the chance to be involved in Glasgow 2026.
It took two or three rounds of interviews, and a lot of work to convince people within the administration that he was serious, but Jones was eventually announced as Team Wales' chef de mission last summer.
"It's important to me that people knew I did my work for it, rather than think, 'oh, it's a guy off the telly that might be able to add some value profile-wise'," he explains.
"I'm doing this because I'm passionate about it. It's a voluntary role that I've been working hard for the last six, seven years to get.
"Growing up, I wanted to compete for my country. And this feels like the next best thing because I wasn't good enough to do it."
Officially, Jones' responsibilities include leading and motivating athletes and support staff, representing Wales at official functions, and acting as a spokesperson.
In reality, it has become far more all-encompassing and much more operational.
Alongside team general manager Kath Shearer and deputy chef de mission Matt Cosgrove, Jones was immersed in all the sessions in Glasgow - and only able to fit this chat in after dodging a briefing on visas for travel to the UK.
His morning run along the Clyde was dominated by thoughts about how to get around the city in the summer, and his evening was spent surviving a ceilidh with representatives of the 74 Commonwealth nations and territories.
In keeping with his Blue Peter ideals, Jones is getting right in among it all.
"I didn't sign up to this job just to go, 'where do you need me?'" he says. "I signed up to learn, and who knows where it may take me in the future. Is it more than I thought? Yeah, but I just say 'yes' to everything and learn as I go.
"Every week, I learn something new and try to add value wherever I can - whether I've got a mate who's willing to do a bit of laundry for us to bring the cost down, or whether it's larger things, like connecting the team between different locations.
"One little thing I do might just help an athlete win a medal."
'You don't have to love sport to love the Games'
Jones has found himself awake at night pondering Games logistics and says he has become a bore when talking to friends and colleagues about such matters.
But Glasgow 2026 has come to unashamedly dominate his thoughts.
He has spent the past nine months getting to know athletes and their stories, and meeting many of them so they understand he's more than just 'that fella off the telly'.
And he has had to explain to countless people what a chef de mission actually is. "My nephew thinks I'm making lunch for the team," says Jones.
"And when I sat on Morning Live and announced it, the actual chef made a similar joke, but the point is that the audience - who are maybe not into sport - now know what a chef de mission is and suddenly the reach is wider.
"The thing is, you don't have to love sport to love the Commonwealth Games.
"If you look at mainstream entertainment now, whether that's Strictly Come Dancing or X Factor or whatever, I'm not sure you're in it for the dancing or the singing, but you're definitely in it for the human stories, aren't you?"
Jones knows how to tell those stories better than most. And he knows the Games, too.
He was a paying punter in Birmingham four years ago, has studied the history of the event and has spoken to countless athletes - big names and otherwise - to try to get to the nub of why the Games matter. Every day brings a new answer.
"Even this morning, I was trying to explain it to the chef de missions from the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos," he says. "And I don't think they quite understood the difference between competing for Wales and for GB.
"I feel like I'm representing my country. Beyond that part, a lot of these guys can't put into words what it's like to compete for Wales. But people at home will look out for the red vest, and be invested. And that's a really special thing."
Commonwealth Games
Glasgow 2026
July 23 - August 2
