Ammanford’s favourite weatherman Owain Wyn Evans is enduring the toughest challenge of his lifetime as he steps up the pace in the BBC’s gruelling ‘Freeze the Fear’ series.
Viewers recently saw him break down in tears as he attempted to swim up to six metres under an ice lake and navigate himself under a rope.
“The hardest thing for me is undoubtedly the cold temperatures,” he said.
“A someone who is used to wearing a three-piece suite every day for work, I’m certainly used to layers.
"But this takes things to a completely different level and it’s made me much more nervous that I thought I’d be.”
Owain and his seven celebrity contestants, who include Chelcee Grimes, Gabby Logan, Alfie Boe and French footballer Patrice Evra, are undertaking a series of challenges in the sub-zero temperatures of the Italian Mountains.
The challenges test them to their limits, both physically and mentally.
But 38-year-old Owain is no stranger of the demands of a mental challenge.
Last November he set himself the task of completing a 24-hour drumming marathon for Children In Need which succeeded in raising a massive £2 million.
He’s also earned himself the accolade of winning Celebrity Mastermind after scoring 12 points on his specialist subject of Britney Spears.
Born and raised in Ammanford, Owain landed his first broadcasting job when he was 18 on the children’s Welsh language news programme Ffeil.
He then worked as a reporter, presenter and video journalist for BBC Wales and in 2012 joined BBC Wales Today to present the weather reports.
He is now the weather presenter on North West Tonight and a regular presenter on The One Show.
For many years Owain has been a prominent and infulential LGBTQ+ activist and is open about his long-term partner and husband, Arran Rees.
Meanwhile Owain is preparing for the next round of ‘Freeze For Fear’ under the relentless guidance of Wim Hof.
“Some people are scare of heights and some people are scared of cold,” he concluded.
"But seeing all these landscapes that stretch before us at the moment in the Italian Mountains is just so terrifying. So I guess I’m just scared of ice.”
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