The 21st Commonwealth Games – Gold Coast, Australia April 2018 [Part 1: 4-5 April]
On Wednesday night, the 4th April, 2018. Australia’s ‘Gold Coast’ welcomed thousands of fans, athletes and officials to the XX1 Commonwealth Games, setting the tone for 11 amazing days of world-class sporting competition – a ‘showcase of culture, colour, unity and diversity, with tonight’s Opening Ceremony planned to epitomise the spirit of the Gold Coast and Queensland’ [official website].
What follows will be the ‘Coachbuilder’s’ summary of the competition, and as with past presentations, submitting an emphasis on Australian performers [as a proud supporter of all Australian participation in international sport] but at the same time recognising outstanding performances by other athletes and nations. I had the privilege of being a full-time Volunteer at the Sydney Olympic Games [in 2000], and a daily spectator at a range of competitions at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games [2006]. This time, I’m a spectator in front of the television, having decided that attendance at the Gold Coast this year was a little beyond my present physical and energy capacities [and current finances]!!
From the official preview guide, we read the following summary, and individual comments.
- The Commonwealth is a voluntary association of independent and equal sovereign states who strive to pursue shared goals such as development, democracy and peace. It spans all six continents, and includes both advanced economies and developing countries. It’s made up of a multitude of faiths, races, languages, cultures and traditions…………Hundreds of languages and regional dialects are spoken around the Commonwealth. However, there’s one language that Commonwealth members all share: the language f sport.
- While 54 sovereign states are members of the Commonwealth, there are 70 nations and territories competing at the Commonwealth Games.
- The Commonwealth Sport Movement is underpinned by three key values: Humanity; Equality; and, Destiny.
- From the traditional custodians of Australia, and the oldest living culture of the world, having lived on this country for over 50,000, all are welcomed, specifically by the Yugambeh Language Group, who are connected to the Gold Coast region and beyond.
- In 1891, an Adelaide-born man named John Astley Cooper penned a letter to the editor of Britain’s ‘The Times Newspaper’. In it, he suggested that, every four years, a sporting festival might be held ‘as a means of increasing goodwill and good understanding of the British Empire’. While there was plenty of enthusiasm for the idea, it would not be until 1930 that it came to any reality.
- In 1930, the first British Empire Games took place in Hamilton [Ontario, Canada], where 11 countries sent 400 athletes to compete in 59 events.
- The Empire Games would eventually become the Commonwealth Games, but were also known unofficially by another name – ‘The Friendly Games’.
- The Games have now being held in almost every Commonwealth region. In Kuala Lumpur, in 1988, the first time they were held in Asia, we also saw the first time that team sports had been included.
- Of the 21 holdings of the competition [including 2018], Australian cities have hosted the Games on 5 occasions – Sydney [1938], Perth [1962], Brisbane [1982], Melbourne [2006], and the Gold Coast [2018].
- In 2018, the Games bring together 6,000 athletes and officials from 70 nations & territories, competing in 18 sports.
- The sports to be covered are Athletics; Badminton; Basketball; Beach Volleyball; Boxing; Cycling [Mountain Bike, Road, Track]; Diving; Gymnastics [Artistic, and Rhythmic]; Hockey; Lawn Bowls; Netball; Powerlifting; Rugby Sevens; Shooting; Squash; Swimming; Table Tennis; Triathlon; Weightlifting; and, Wrestling.
- Not all events will be held on the Gold Coast, for example, the early rounds of the basketball competitions will be held at Cairns and Townsville to the far north of Brisbane, while other sports will feature in regions to the near north, south or west of the Gold Coast area.
- A brief geography lesson and mind searcher – the 70 nations and/or territories participating are – Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, The Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Botswana, British Virgin Islands, Brunei Darussalam, Cameroon, Canada, Cayman Islands, Cook Islands, Cyprus, Dominica, England, Falkland Islands, Fiji, Ghana, Gibraltar. Grenada, Guernsey, Guyana, India, Isle of Man, Jamaica, Jersey, Kenya, Kiribati, Lesotho, Malawi, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Montserrat, Mozambique, Namibia, Nauru, New Zealand, Nigeria, Niue, Norfolk Island, Northern Ireland, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, St. Helena, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines; Samoa, Scotland, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, United Republic of Tanzania, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, Wales, Zambia,
Before we consider 2018, I would just like to briefly mention my personal highlight and memory from all Commonwealth Games, that I have witnessed or enjoyed, through one medium or another – in Athletes, at the 1990 Games in Auckland, New Zealand, the Men’s 5,000 metres event, which saw Kenya’s John Ngugi leading into the last lap with victory in his grasp, until a brilliant finish by Australia’s Andrew Lloyd – who is probably best known, and remembered, for that effort in coming from behind Ngugi in the last lap to take the gold medal Every now and then, I retrieve the tape of that race, maybe for some kind of personal inspiration, it certainly can’t help but inspire!! As reported in a Wikipedia article – ‘Lloyd, whose performances in big events had come under question, won a dramatic 5000 metres final at the Commonwealth Games in Auckland’s Mount Smart Stadium in 1990. Running third coming into the final bend, Lloyd passed Welshman Ian Hamer and set out after the leader, the reigning Olympic Games 5000 metres champion John Ngugi from Kenya. Ngugi was tiring and with about 5 metres to go Lloyd powered past to win in a time of 13:24.86, just 0.08 in front of the Olympic champion’.
The Opening Ceremony [Wednesday, 4th April]
I was very pleased to learn some time ago, that my favourite Aussie singer, Katie Noonan, is the musical director for the Opening and Closing ceremonies.
As Katie wrote today from her web page – “Super thrilled to let you all know that tonight the fruits of my musical labours of the last year will be broadcast to a worldwide audience of approximately 1.5 billion people – OMG, no pressure L. As a fiercely proud Queenslander and with a deep connection to this part of the world [my first ever gig with ‘George’ was on the Gold Coast] I am deeply honoured to present the soundtrack to our Opening Ceremony story. A story that celebrates our connections and our similarities rather than our difference – one mob, one people. It has been particularly rewarding to work alongside the Yugembah community and to observe and learn from their spirituality and connection to country……………..Katie Noonan.
I watched all of the opening ceremony – there was a lot of emphasise on the Indigenous community, their culture and history, and this was spread throughout the event, and in the main, was quite outstanding. I enjoyed seeing people like former Aussie swimming hero, Susie O’Neill as one of the baton carriers later in the evening, while the singing of Katie Noonan led me to make a comment on Face book – and the response from a friend I’d not expected to know anything about her – “What a unique singing talent that Katie is? Just about impossible to copy!” Yes, indeed!
I use an on-line summary of the ceremony to set the picture.
“PRINCE Charles and Camilla were blessed Aboriginal-style in an ancient smoking ceremony in the royal box as indigenous culture took centre stage at last night’s opening spectacular.
Local Yugambeh Aboriginal artist Luther Cora and his family performed the ceremony in the middle of the stadium before the smoking bundle of plants was taken to the box to ‘cleanse’ the Prince and Duchess of Cornwall.
Striking indigenous themes dominated the ceremony which began with big screen images of 11-year-old Aboriginal girl Isabella Graham sitting in the crowd holding a mobile phone.
Isabella, the niece of Coast Games medal designer Delvene Cockatoo-Collins, raised the phone displaying the message: ‘Welcome to the oldest living culture on earth’
It signalling a countdown to a dramatic burst of blue pyrotechnics representing planet earth’s creation.
World-renowned didgeridoo player William Barton also starred, with images of him blowing his instrument atop Surfers Paradise super-tower Q1 before appearing in the stadium as part of the ‘Four Winds’ didgeridoo orchestra.
Mau Power, the first hip-hop artist to emerge out of the Torres Strait, performed his upbeat rap remake of the Christine Anu hit before Anu herself joined him in the middle of the stadium.
Daubed in ghostly paint and feathers and carrying smoking staffs, members of the acclaimed Bangarra Dance Theatre performed a totem ceremony which finished with a flyover by a giant wedge tail eagle created as part of a dazzling light show.
The athletes paraded around the stadium on an 8m wide ribbon of indigenous artwork created by renowned Torres Strait artist Brian Robinson. A giant effigy of famed white whale Migaloo, lit up with images of Antarctica and the Great Barrier Reef painted by Cockatoo-Collins, floated across the stadium in a dramatic finale.”
I had to note that report failed to mention the wonderful Katie Noonan who joined the Gold Coast Choir to sing You’re Welcome Here — a mash-up of snapshots of Australian songs including I Still Call Australia Home and We Are Australian. – and with other performers, ranging from Christine Anu to Delta Goodrem and Ricki-Lee, we saw plenty of throwback musical performers.
Day One of competition, 5th April – the events are underway
In looking at each day’s competition, I’m going to examine them in alphabetical order, rather than the actual order of play.
The day would start with some disappointing news from the Gold Coast – following her appearance in the Opening Ceremony last night – Sally Pearson’s media announcement, as a consequence of practical and medical advice – ‘Sally Pearson has been forced to withdraw from the Commonwealth Games, unable to overcome her Achilles injury. Pearson, the captain of the Australian athletics team and face of her home Commonwealth Games, told her teammates at about 9am that she had to withdraw.
Pearson has been troubled by an Achilles injury that has stopped her racing over hurdles. She recently ran a sprint relay in a warm-up event but avoided running over the hurdles. It is understood she is not going to compete in the sprint relay at the Commonwealth Games either as she focuses on overcoming the injury. Pearson had won gold in the 100 hurdles at the past two Commonwealth Games in Delhi and Glasgow’. Sally also won the event at last year’s World Athletic Championships.
Meanwhile, today’s events included Artistic Gymnastics, Badminton, Basketball, Boxing, Cycling [Track], Hockey, Lawn Bowls, Netball, Squash, Swimming, Table Tennis, Triathlon and Weightlifting.
Artistic Gymnastics: Artistic Gymnastics includes 14 medal events in men’s and women’s team, individual all-round, and apparatus finals. Men compete in floor exercise, pommel horse, rings, vault, parallel bars and horizontal bar. Women’s apparatus are vault, uneven bars, balance beam and floor exercise. The competition begins with qualification rounds, and athletes with the highest scores progress to the finals. Team events have 3 to 5 athletes in national teams competing for the highest combined scores.
In the Men’s Artistic Gymnastics Men’s Team Final and Individual qualification events.
The Men’s Team Final result saw GOLD : England; Silver: Canada; and Bronze: Scotland. Australia finished in 5th position [Luke Wadsworth, Michael Mercieca, Mitchell Morgans, Christopher Remkes, and Michael Tone]. Michael Tone of Australia was ranked 11th at the end of the individual qualification round.
Badminton is considered the world’s fastest racquet sport. In badminton the best of three games wins. In individual games, the first team/player to score 21 points wins, if the score is tied at 20 all, two consecutive points are required to win the game, and if still equal at 29-29, the first side to score the 30th point wins. Today, Group matches in the Mixed Team’s events were held – Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles, and Mixed Doubles games, Australia up against South Africa in Group C . Today’s Australian group results:- Mixed Team event: Group C: Australia defeated South Africa.
Basketball: this sport returns to the Commonwealth Games, with both the Men’s and Women’s competition commencing today in the Events cities of Cairns and Townsville. – Australia not featured today.
Men’s Pool B results: Scotland defeated England:78-65; Cameroon defeated India 96-87.
Women’s Pool B results: Jamaica defeated India 66-57; New Zealand defeated Malaysia 86.-44
Boxing, and the Round of 32 events got under way. Boxing is a knockout competition, with bouts of 3 rounds of 3 minutes each in both men’s and women’s events. Today – In the Men’s 69 Kg category, Australia’s Terry Nickolas defeated Carl Hield of The Bahamas 5-0. In the Men’s 60 kg category, Harry Garside defeated Abdul Omar of Ghana 5-0.
Netball: the competition is based on two pools of six teams, Each team plays five preliminary matches against the other teams within their pool. The top two teams from each pool qualify for semi-finals, and then the finals. The remaining pool teams play off in 5th to 12th place classification matches. – Australia is in Pool A.
Results today saw Jamaica defeat Fiji 88-30 [Pool A] and England defeat Scotland 74-28 [Pool B]. Australia defeated Northern Ireland 94-26 [Pool A]. New Zealand defeated Uganda 64-51 [Pool B]
Hockey – With a Men’s and Women’s competition, each features 10 teams, with 18 athletes per team. In the first phase, 10 teams are split into pools of 5 in a round-robin format. At the end of the pool stage, the top two teams from each pool proceed to the semi-finals and then the medal finals. The remaining teams play classification matches. If scores are tied at the end of finals or classification matches, the winner will be determined by a goal shoot-out.
Australia’s Women played today in Pool B, and defeated Canada 1-0. In the other Pool B match, New Zealand defeated Scotland 6-1. In Women’s Pool A, a shock win by Wales over India 3-2 occurred, while England defeated South Africa 2-0. Surprisingly, the Australian Men’s Hockey team failed to qualify for the Games.
Lawn Bowls – this program features 10 medal events including two para sport medals. All events begin with a group stage, where teams play each other before moving to the final stages.
1st Round results today for Australia: Karen Murphy [who read the athlete’s oath at the Opening Ceremony] defeated Malai Kioa [Tonga] 21-4 in the Women’s Singles. Murphy said afterwards that she ‘had plenty left in the tank and can improve’ further. The 43 year-old is affectionately called ‘Nanna’ by teammates.
The Men’s Triples 1st Round match saw Australia defeated by Jersey 18-21. Other matches: Men’s Pairs Round 1: Australia defeated Malta 22-11; Women’s Fours 1st Round: Australia defeated Papua New Guinea 41-1. Mixed B2/B3 Para Pairs: Australia defeated South Africa 26-3; Open B6/B7/B8 Triples: Australia defeated Scotland 18-6.
Squash: all games are played to 11 points, with points awarded whether a player is serving or returning. In Singles, the player must be 2 points ahead to win a game, and a win is the best of 5 games while in Doubles, it is the first team to reach 11, the best of 3 games.
In Men’s Singles Round of 64, Rex Hedrick defeated Eain Yow NG of Malaysia 3-2. Round of 32 matches saw in the Women’s Singles, Christin Nunn defeated Diane Kellas of Malta 3-0, and Tamika Saxby defeated Eilidh Bridgeman [CAY] 3-0, while in the Men’s Singles, Ruan Cuskelly defeated Othniel Bailey [SVG] 3-0; Rex Hendrick defeated Sunil Seth [GUY] 3-0, Cameron Pilley defeated Ernest Jombla [SLE] 3-0.
Swimming heats were held during the morning session, and Australian results were as follows.
Women’s Individual Medley Relay: Heat 1: Meg Bailey [1st], Blair Evans [2nd]. Heat 2: Kaylee McKeown [4rh]
Men’s 400 m Freestyle: Heat 1: Jack McLoughlin [1st]. Heat 2: Mack Horton [1st], David McKeon [3rd]
Women’s 200m Fresstyle: Heat 2: Ariarne Titmus [1st], Leah Neale [2nd]. Heat 3: Emma MvKeon [1st]
Men’s [Para] S14 200m. Heat 1: Fresstyle: Daniel Fox [1st], Liam Schuter [2nd], Mitchell Kilduff [3rd]
Women’s [Para] S7 50 m Butterfly: Heat 1: Riffany Thomas-Kane [3rd]
Men’s 50 m Butterfly. Heat 5: David Morgan [4th]. Heat 6: Grant Irvine [2nd].
Women’s 50m Breastroke: Heat 2: Leiston Pickett [1st]. Heat 3: Jessica Hansen [2nd], Georgia Bohl [3rd]
Men’s 100m Backstroke. Heat 1: Benjamin Treffers [2nd]. Hear 3: Mitch Larkham [1st], Bradley Woodward [3rd]
Women’s 100m Butterfly,Heat 1: Brianna Throssell [1st]. Heat 3: Madeline Groves [1st]. Emma McKeon [2nd].
Men’s 200m Backstroke. Heat 1: Matt Wilson [1st]. Zac Stubblety-Cook [5th]. Heat 2: George Harley [5th]
Swimming Semi-finals during the Evening session saw the following Australian results.
Men’s 50m Butterfly: S/Final 1: Grant Irvine [1st] in 23.79. S/Final 2: David Morgan [4th] 24.17 . Both men qualified for the Final. Fastest S/Final time: 23.53 [RSA].
Women’s 50m Breaststroke: S/Final 1: Georgia Bohl [1st] 30.92; Jssica Hansen [2nd] 30.92; Leiston Pickett [3rd] 31.02. All three qualified for the Final. Fastest S/Final time: 30.53 [Jamaica].
Men’s 100m Backstroke: S/Final 2: Mitch Larkin [1st] 53.15; Bradley Woodward [2nd] 54.22; Benjamin Treffrs [4th] 54.62. All qualified for the Final. Fastest S/Final time: Larkin.
Women’s 100m Butterfly: S/Final 1: Emma McKeon [1st] 57.94; Brianna Throssell [3rd] 58.38; SD/Final 2: Madeline Groves [1st] 57.22 [GR]; All qualified for the Final. Fastest time: Groves.
Swimming Finals during the evening session resulted as follows
Women’s 400m Individual Medley Final. [WR: 4.26.36] [Australia’s first swimming medal]: Gold: Aimee Willmott [England] 4.34.90; Silver: Hannah Miley [Scotland] 4.35.16. Bronze: Blair Evans [Australia] 4.38.23. Meg Bailey [Australia] finished 7th: 4.41.46. Hannah Miley had won this event in the two previous Commonwealth Games.
Men’s 400m Freestyle Final [WR: 3.40.07]. Two medals to Australia. GOLD: Mack Horton [Australia] 3.43.76; Silver: Jack McLoughlin [Australia] 3.45.21; Bronze: James Guy [England] 3.45.32. Australia’s David McKeon finished 6th in 3.49.60.Mack Horton is the current Olympic champion.
Women’s 200m Freestyle Final [WR: 1.52.98]. Two medals to Australia. GOLD: Taylor Ruck [Canada] 1.54.81 [GR]; Silvr: Ariarne Titmus [Australia] 1.54.85; Bronze: Emma McKeon [Australia] 1.56.26. Australia’s Leah Neale finished 6th in 1.58.76.
Men’s S14 [Para] 200m Freestyle Final [WR: 1.56.18]: Two medals to Australia. GOLD: Thomas Hamer [England] 1.55.88 [a World Record]; Silver: Liam Schluter [Australia] 1.56.23; Bronze: Daniel Fox [Australia] 1.58.26. Australia’s Mitchell Kilduff finished 4th in 1.59.55.
Women’s S7 [Para] 50m Butterfly Final [WE: 33.81]: GOLD: Eleanor Robinson [England] 35.72; Silver: Sarah Mehain [Canada] 37.69; Bronze: Tess Routliffe [Canada] 37.85. Australia’s Tiffany Thomas Kane finished 4th in 38.68.
Men’s 200m Breaststroke Final [WR: 2.06.67]. One Australian medal. GOLD: James Wilby [England] 2.08.05; Ross Murdoch [Scotland] 2.08.32; Bronze: Matt Wilson [Australia] 2.08.64. Australia’s George Harley finished 5th in 2.10.04.
Women’s 4 x 100m Freestyle Relay [WR: 3.30.65 held by Australia, the reigning World & Olympic champions, from the Rio Olympics]. GOLD: Australia [new World Record time of 3.30.05 – Shayna Jack; Bronte Campbell; Emma McKeon; & Kate Campbell]; Silver: Canada; Bronze: England.
Table Tennis: Singles matches are the best of seven games. Team and the Para table tennis matches are best of five games. A game is won by the first player or team to reach 11 points, unless both sides have scored 10-10, in which case a two point lead is required to claim a game.
Australian results today were: Women’s Team Group 3: Australia defeated Mauritius; Australia defeated Canada. . Men’s Team Group 5: Australia defeated Kiribati; Australia defeated Scotland;
Track Cycling Finals: track cycling events were held at the appropriately named Anna Meares Velodrome. Today’s events included races for the visually impaired, where the B & VI competitor is piloted on a tandem bike by a sighted partner. The various medal outcomes, in six events, were as follows.
Women’s Blind & Vision Impaired Sprint Final: with only two competitors, just a Gold Medal was awarded under the rules. Gold went to Sophie Thornhill [piloted by Helen Scott] of England, defeating Australia’s Jessica Gallager [piloted by Madison Janssen]
Men’s B & VI 1000m TT Final: GOLD: Neil Fache [Scotland]; Silver: Jams Ball [Wales]; Bronze: Brad Henderson [Australia] piloted by Tom Clarke
Women’s 4000m Team Pursuit Finals: GOLD: Australia [Ashleigh Ankudinoff. Georgia Baker, Amy Cure, Annette Edmondson, Alexandra Manly] ; Silver: New Zealand; Bronze: Canada
Men’s 4000m Team Pursuit Finals: GOLD: AUSTRALIA [World Record: 3.49.804: Leigh Howard, Jordan Kerby, Alex Porter, Sam Welsford]; Silver: England; Bronze: Canada.
Women’s Team Sprint Finals: GOLD: Australia [Kaarle McCulloch & Stephanie Morton]; Silver: New Zealand; Bronze: England
Men’s Team Sprint Finals: GOLD: New Zealand; Silver: New Zealand: Bronze: Australia [Patrick Constable, Matt Glatezer, Nathan Hart, Jacob Schmid].
Triathlon [Women] – this was the first medal event of the Games – this event combines the three disciplines of swimming, cycling and running. For both men and women, it consists of a 750 metre swim in open water, a 20 km cycle and a 5km run. Australia had three competitors, with Ashleigh Gentle in particular expected to do well against the reigning World Champion, Flora Duffy. That wasn’t to be – Ashleigh finished 5th [58.08], with Gillian Backhouse 9th [58.54] and Charlotte McShane, 11th [59.20]. Medal winners: Gold: Flora Duffy [Bermuda]: 56.50; Silver: Jessica Learmonth [England] 57.33; Bronze: Joanna Brown [Canada] 57.38.
Triathlon [Men] followed early in the afternoon – in slightly worse conditions, as rain set in for a while, and certainly as far as the cycling leg was concerned, conditions on the road became a little more treacherous. Again, three Aussie competitors in an event which over the years has been dominated by England Brown brothers. However, on this occasion, they both finished out of a place, after being in strong positions near the end of the cycling leg of the event, which saw Australia win it’s 1st Medal [a Silver] of the Games. Gold went to Henri Schoemann [RSA] 52.31. Silver to Australia’s Jacob Birtwhistle, 52.37, and Bronze to Marc Austin [Scotland], 52.44. The other two Australians finished 4th, Matthew Hauser [52.46] and 8th, Luke Willian [53.33].
Weightlifting: each lifter has three attempts at the snatch [a single movement where the lifter holds the bar with a wide grip and lifts the weight off the ground in one swift movement], and then three attempts at the clean and jerk [a two-part movement; first with a shoulder-width grip, the lifter pulls the weight up to their shoulders and then balances it. In the second movement, the lifter snaps the bar overhead and stands upright again] with a 10 minute break between the two categories. After all six attempts are complete, the best snatch and best clean and jerk weights are combined to give the lifter a total, which is their overall score.
There were three Medal events today.
Men’s 56 kg Final: Gold: Malaysia. Silver: India. Bronze: Sri Lanka [Australia’s Phillip Liao finished in 12th position]. Women’s 48 kg Final: Gold: India. Silver: MRI. Bronze: Sri Lanka [Australia’s Alyce Stephensen finished in 6th position].
Men’s 62 kg Final. Gold: Muhamad Aznel Bidin [[MAS]; Silver: Morea Baru [PNG]; Bronze: Talha Talib [PAK]. Australia’s Vannara Be finished in 10th position.
I guess the two specific highlights of Day One of competition had to be the two World Records, viz, the Cycling Men’s World Record in the 4,000 metres Team Pursuit event, and the four girls who represented Australia in the Swimming 4 x 100 metres Relay Final, when they broke their own World Record set at the Rio Olympics, with each swimmer creating sensational times, with the crowd at the Aquatic pool certainly helping to bring them home. I personally find the non-stop hero worship of our swimmers by commentators, and the media generally, and the constant replays and interviews, quite over the top and annoying [with many other sports and their competitors ignored for the bulk of the coverage] – however, it was difficult not to be affected by the euphoria associated with that particular swim.
On the other side of the slate, the withdrawal of 31 year-old Sally Pearson from the Hurdles event of the athletic competition was a severe disappointment to herself obviously, and athletic fans in general Her brilliant ‘come-back’ win from injury, at last year’s World Athletic Championships was nothing short of inspiring. She had arrived at the Gold Coast optimistic that her troublesome Achilles problem would come good, but such was not to be. She waited until Day one of competition to make the announcement, although being aware two days earlier that she could not run. The delay was twofold – she wanted to give it more thought in the cold light of day, and secondly, did not want it to distract from her participation in the Opening Ceremony, where she was involved in the baton relay.
The 21st Commonwealth Games – Gold Coast , [Part 2: 6-7 April]
Day Two of Competition, Friday, 6th April.
Today’s events were Artistic Gymnastics, Badminton, Basketball, Beach Volleyball, Boxing, Cycling Track, Hockey, Lawn Bowls, Netball, Squash, Swimming, Table Tennis, and Weightlifting..
A day of many Gold and other medals awarded to Australian competitors, as usual mainly in swimming and track cycling. But my highlight had to be the Gold Medal won by one of our Women weightlifters
Now this series of articles, is as intended to be a reflection principally of Australian performances, though the writer dos not wish to ignore other competitors. Unfortunately, our media is not always so obvious in such sentiments. For example, the following paragraph took front page of a Melbourne paper on Saturday morning – ‘Australia dominated the pool in a glittering night at the Commonwealth Games, claiming a clean sweep in the women’s 100m butterfly and winning the men’s 4 x 100m relay. The Aussies secured nine gold medals in weightlifting, cycling and swimming, with Kyle Chalmers and Mack Horton taking gold and silver in the 200m freestyle……………….I will try and avoid the extreme patriotism with a more even-handed approach!!
Artistic Gymnastics
Today saw the Women’s Team Finals and Individual qualification event.
The Team Gold went to Canada; the Silver to England, and the Bronze to the Australian girls – Georgia-Rose Brown, Alexandra Eade, Georgia Godwin, Rianna Mizzen, & Emily Whitehad]. Georgia-Rose Brown qualified 5th overall in the individual rankings.
Badminton
Qualifying rounds continued today, and Australian competitors featured in the Mixed Team event [Group C], with ‘mixed’ results – Mixed Team, Group C – Australia defeated Uganda 4-1; England defeated Australia 5-0;
Basketball
Both the Australian Men and Women’s teams commenced their competition today with satisfactory results.
Men’s Pool A matches – Australia [the ‘Boomers’] defeated Canada 95-55; New Zealand defeated Nigeria 110-65, a strong win by the Boomers, described as more playing with the opposition than against it, but there is a long way to go!
Women’s Pool A matches: Canada defeated England 80-54; Australia [the ‘Opals’] defeated Mozambique 113-53. Liz Cambage dominated for the Opals with 24 points
Beach Volleyball
A very popular team sport, and rather appropriate to be undertaken at the Gold Coast – first time held at the Commonwealth Games. Each team is made up of two players, with no substitutions allowed. There are 12 Men’s and Women’s teams divided into 3 pools of 4 teams each. A match is played as the best of 3 sets, with the first two played to 21 points, while the third if required, is played to 15 points. Each set must be won by 2 points.
Australian results for the first day of competition were –
Men’s Preliminaries: Pool A: Australia [McHugh/Schumann] defeated Fiji 2-0 [21-9, 21-9]
Women’s Preliminaries: Pool A: Australia [Artacho del Solar/Clancy] defeated Cyprus 2-0 [21-14; 21-9]
Boxing
Australia had just the one competitor today – in the Men’s 75 kg Round of 32: Campbell Somerville defeated Joshua Redhead [Grenada]
Cycling Track
It was another big day and night at the Anna Meares Velodrome today. There were a couple of highlights I’d like to mention. The win by Stephanie Morton [in winning Australia’s 100th Games cycling Gold Medal] in the individual sprint event, having won nit at Glasgow 4 years ago. Your comment afterwards – “That’s testament to the strong cycling program we’ve had in Australia for a long time..” She and team mate, Kaarle McCulloch won the Team Sprint yesterday. In the exciting Men’s Keiren event, Australia’s Matthew Glaetzer turned it on with a great ride, following his Bronze medal yesterday in the Team Sprint. I liked his attitude and comment afterwards – “We as athletes aren’t doing it for ourselves, we’re doing it for the nation’.
Friday’s medal results were as follows.
Women’s Sprint: Semi-finals [best of 3 sprint races]: Stephanie Morton [Australia] defeated Kaarle McCulloch [Australia] 2-0; and Natasha Hansen [New Zealand] defeated Lauriane Genest [Canada] 2-0.
Gold Medal: Stephanie Morton [Australia] defeated Nastasha Hansen [New Zealand] 2-0. The Bronze went to Australia’s Kaarle McCulloch in defeating the Canadian 2-0:
Women’s 3000 metres Individual Pursuit Final For the Gold/Silver: Katie Archibald [Scotland] defeated Rebecca Wiasak [Australia]. For the Bronze: Annette Edmondson [Australia] defeated Ashlee Ankudinoff [Australia].
Men’s 4000 metres Individual Pursuit Final For the Gold/Silver: Charlie Tanfield [England] defeated John Archibald [Scotland]. For the Bronze medal, Dylan Kennett [New Zealand] defeated Jordan Kerby [Australia].
Men’s Keirin Final. Gold to Matt Glaetzer [Australia]; Silver to Lewis Oliva [Wales], and Bronze to Edward Dawkins [New Zealand]. Also competed in this event for Australia – Patrick Constable[finished 8th], Jacob Schmid [finished 9th].
Hockey
Men’s Pool results: England defeated Malaysia 7-0; New Zealand defeated Canada 6-2;
Women’s Pool results: India defeated Malaysia 4-1; New Zealand defeated Ghana 2-0, England defeatd Wales 5-1, and Canada/Scotland 0-0 draw.
Lawn Bowls
This sport can be quite entertaining to watch, as are a number of the other Games competitions referred to in these reports – but the television [and often general; media coverage] gives very little attention to them, all the broad public seems to want as far the TV people are concerned is swimming, swimming and more swimming. Of course, the so-called Apps supposedly cover everything, but who wants to try and find a variety of things on tiny screens, etc, not this viewer for one!!
Anyway, enough of that – the competition rounds of lawn bowls continued today, a very big program throughout the day, and the Australian outcomes were s follows. Men’s Triples Round 3: Australia defeated Botswana 33-4; Women’s Singles, Round 3: Karen Murphy [Australia] defeated Gertrude Ziame [Zambia] 21-3; Mn’s Triples Round 4: Australia defeated Fiji 28-3; Women’s Singles Round 4: Karen Murphy defeated Colleen Pikth [South Africa] 21-16; Mixed B2/B3 [Para] Pairs, Round 2: England defeated Australia 17-16; Women’s Fours, Round 3: Australia defeated Cook Islands 15-9; Men’s Pairs, Round 4: Australia defeated Brunei Darussalam 30-7; Open B6.B7/B8 [Para] Triples Round 2: Australia defeated South Africa 13-10; Women’s Fours, Round 4: Australia defeated Namibia 23-9, Men’s Pairs, Round 4: Australia defeated Guernsey 18-15.
Netball
Pool A results: Jamaica defeated South Africa 57-46; Australia defeated Barbados 79-24;
Pool B results: New Zealand defeated Wales 70-44; England defeated Malawi 74-49
Squash
Women’s Singles Round of 16: Donna Urquhart [Australia] defeated Christine Nunn [Australia] 3-2; Tamika Saxby [Australia] defeated Joshna Chinappa [India] 3-0;
Men’s Singles Round of 16: Cameron Pilley [Australia] defeated Lewis Walters [Jamaica] 3-0; Ryan Cuskelly [Australia] defeated Nafrizwan Adnan [Malaysia] on walkover; Alan Clyne [Scotland] defeated Rex Hedrick [Australia] 3-0.
Swimming
Well, the expected headlines in Saturday’s media went along the lines of ‘Aussie Gold Rush’, One-Two Punch’ and ‘It’s Raining Gold’ [in fact it was literally ‘raining’ during the swimming finals tonight, which no doubt worried the spectators and officials more than it did the actual swimmers.
There were a number of swimming events held throughout the day, including heats, semi-finals etc in the morning session, and a series of Medal events during the evening [when the Gold Coast area experienced a series of rain storms]. I’ll concentrate on the Gold Medal results below, but including reference to any Aussie swimmers who didn’t get that far, although most of them got into the respective finals. I have been pleased to see the success that Scotland have been having in the pool.
Men’s 50 metre Butterfly Final: [WR 22.43]. GOLD: Chad Le Clos [South Africa]: 23.37; Silver: Dylan Carter [Trinidad & Tobago] 23.67; Bronze: Ryan Coetzee [South Africa] 23.73. Australia’s finished 4th in 23.76, and David Morgan 8th in 24.01
Women’s 50 metre Breaststroke Final: [WR: 29.40]: GOLD: Sarah Vasey [England] 30.60; Silver: Alia Atkinson [Jamaica] 30.76. Bronze: Leiston Pickett [Australia] 30.78. Australia’s Jessica Hansen finished 5th in 30.83, and Georgia Bohl, 6th in 30.88.
Men’s 200 metres Freestyle Final: [WR: 1.42.00]. GOLD: Kyle Chalmers [Australia] 1.45.56; Silver: Mack Horton [Australia] 1.45.89; Bronze: Duncan Scott [Scotland] 1.46.30. Australia’s Alexander Graham finished in 6th position in 1.47.01
Women’s S9 [Para] 100 metres Backstroke Final: [WR 1.07.66]: GOLD: Alice Tai [England] 1.08.77; Silver: Ellie Cole [Australia] 1.11.51; Bronze: Ashleigh McConnell [Australia] 1.15.93. Australia’s Madeleine Scott finished in 4th position in 1.16.12.
Men’s S9 [Para] 100 metres Freestyle Final [WR 54.18]. GOLD: Timothy Disken [Australia] 56.07; Silver: Lewis White [England] 56.77; Bronze: Brendan Hall [Australia] 57.90. Australia’s Timothy Hodge finished 4th in 58.11.
Men’s 400 metres Individual Medley Final. [WR 4.03.84]: GOLD: Clyde Lewis [Australia] 4.13.12; Silver: Mark Szaranek [Scotland] 4.13.72; Bronze: Lewis Clareburt [New Zealand] 4.14.42. Australia’s Travis Mahoney finished 8th in 4.21.50.
Men’s 100 metres Backstroke Final. [WR 51.85]. GOLD: Mitch Larkin [Australia] 53.18; Silver: Bradley Woodward [Australia] 53.95; Bronze: Markus Thormeyer [Canada] 54.14. Australia’s BenjaminTreffers finished 6th in 54.62.
Women’s 100 metre Butterfly Final. [WR 55.48]. GOLD: Emma McKeon [Australia] 56.78 [GR]; Silver: Madeline Groves [Australia] 57.19; Bronze: Brianna Throssell [Australia] 57.30.
Men’s 4 x 100 metres Fresstyle Relay Final. [WR 3.08.024 USA]. GOLD: AUSTRALIA [Cameron McEvoy, James Magnussen, Jack Cartwright and Kyle Chalmers] 3.12.96; Silver: England; Bronze: Scotland.
Table Tennis
Team events today in which Australia featured in two events.
Women’s Team, Quarter-final 2: Australia defeated Wales 3-1. Men’s Team Round of 16: Australia defeated Sri Lanka 3-0.
Weightlifting
To quote from Saturday’s Herald Sun newspaper: “Eleven days ago, Tia-Clair Toomey was struggling under the weight of unbearable grief. Last night it weas replaced with bittersweet ecstasy. In the performance of hr life, the Queensland fitness queen used the memory of her teenage cousin killed in an horrific car crash on the Sunshine coast last week to inspire her to weightlifting gold…….’This is for her’ Toomey said after her last-gasp 58kg class gold medal’.
Thankfully, I actually got to see the closing stages of that event – my thoughts at the time, both before, and in the post-event interviews – committed, concentrated, impressive, gutsy, incredibly humble in victory, and a bit of ‘light and sunshine’ at an otherwise tragic time for the family. Probably, my ‘golden moment’ of the Games, only two days in!! Today’s three results were:
Women’s 58 kg Final: [WR 252]. GOLD: Tia-Clair Toomey [Australia] 201; Silver: Tali Darsigny [Canada] 200; Bronze: Jenly Wini [Solomon Islands]189.
Women’s 53 kg Final: [WR 233]. GOLD: Sanjita Chanu Khumuk [India] 192; Silver: Loa Dika Toua [PNG] 182; Bronze: Rachel Leblanc-Bazinet [Canada] 181. Australia’s Tegan Napper finished 8th, score 166.
Men’s 69 kg Final: [WR 359]. GOLD: Gareth Evans [Wales] 299; Silver: Indika C Dissanayake Mudiya [Sri Lanka] 297; Bronze: Deepak Lather [India] 295. Australia’s Brandon Wakeling finished 7th with a score of 275.
The progressive Medal Podium [top 4]
- Australia: 14-9-13 [38]
- England: 6.3 [18]
- Canada: 2-4.5- [11]
- Scotland: 4.4 [10]
Day Three of Competition, Saturday, 7th April.
Today’s scheduled events are Artistic Gymnastics, Men’s and Women’s Individual All Round; Badminton; Basketball; BeachVolleyball, Boxing; Cycling Track; Hockey; Lawn Bowls; Netball; Squash; Swimming; Table Tennis; Triathlon, Para Individual, and Team event; Weightlifting
The pool and the velodrome again provided the bulk of Australia’s medals on Day Three of the Games, with Australian maintaining the lead on the medal tally at 20 Gold, 17 Silver, 20 Bronze, for a total of 57 medals. This summary looks at how those, and other results progressed through the day.
Artistic Gymnastics
Men’s Individual All Round Final: GOLD: Nile Wilson [England] 84.950; Silver: James Hall [England] 83.975; Bronze: Marios Georgiou [Cyprus] 83.750. Australia’s Michael Mercieca finished in 5th place [81.350], and Michael Tone finished 8th [78.450]
Women’s Individual All-Round Final: GOLD: Elizabeth Black [Canada] 54.200; Silver: Georgia Godwin [Australia] 53.800; Bronze: Alice Kinsella [England] 53.150. Australia’s Georgia-Rose Brown finished 4th with 53.000. A couple of minor errors probably cost the Australian girl a Gold medal.
Georgia Godwin was brought tears with relief and happiness when she earned the silver medal in the Women’s Artistic Gymnastics (WAG) All-Around Final. Godwin came out firing on Vault and Uneven Bars – the two apparatus she nailed in the qualifications – but it was when she got to the Balance Beam where her nerves would really be tested.
Badminton
Mixed Team Quarter Final results.
India defeated Mauritius 3-0; Singapore defeated Australia [Matthew Chau & Setyana Mapasa] 3-0; Malaysia defeated Scotland 3-0; and, England defeated Canada 3-0.
Basketball
Today’s preliminary round results fell as follows.
Men: Pool A: Canada defeated Nigeria 82-67;’ Australia defeated New Zealand 79-73 [after the Kiwis lead at the end of the first three quarters, and late in the last quarter].
Men Pool B: England defeated India 100-54; Scotland defeated Cameroon 63-52.
Women Pool B: New Zealand defeated Jamaica 80-49; Malaysia defeated India 85-72.
Beach Volleyball
Only the one Australian team participated today – in the Woman’s Pool A: Australia defeated Grenada 2-0 [21-2, 21-11]
Boxing
There were two Aussies in the ring today in the Round of 16.
Terry Nicolas [Australia] defeated Thabiso Selby Dlamini [Swaziland] 5-0;
Kurt Walker [Northern Ireland] defeated Jack Bowen [Australia] 4-1.
Terry Nickolas caused the upset to Swaziland’s Tabiso Selby Diamini, winning his round of sixteen in a unanimous decision by judges. He claimed an almost perfect score, achieving 10 out of 10 for all rounds from all judges, except for the last by just one judge.
Cycling Track
A very exciting and noisy afternoon and evening sessions at the Velodrome today, and continued Australia successes, together with great wins from England, Scotland and Wales.
Men’s B & VI [Para] Sprint Final [WR 9.711]:time measured over final 200 metres
GOLD: Neil Fachie [Scotland, the existing World Record holder, won 2 0f the best of three[10.531 and 10.189. Silver: James Ball [Wales]: Bronze: Brad Henderson [Australia] piloted by Tom Clarke, 2-0 [10.511 & 10.563]
Women’s B & VI [Para] 1000 metres Time Trial [WR 1.05.079]
GOLD: Sophie Thornhill [England, current World Record holder] 1.04.623, new WR. With only three competitors in the race, under the rules, only a Gold Medal was awarded. Which was unfortunate for Australia’s Jessica Gallagher [piloted by Madison Janssen] who finished 2nd in the race, followed by Aileen McGlynn [Scotland]
Women’s 500 Metres Time Trial Final [WR 32.268]
Australia’s favourite for the race was Stephanie Morton, who rode the fastest time when she competed, but still had 9 other competitors to follow her, including Australia’s Kaarle McCulloch. Nobody exceeded Stephanie’s time – until McCulloch had her ride, and subsequently took the lead – both girls then had to wait and see if the last three competitors could better the Australian times, so it was rather tense in the Velodrome as those final rides took place.
The outcome: GOLD: Kaarle MCCulloch [Australia] 33.583; Silver: Stephanie Morton [Australia] 33.619; Bronze: Emma Cumming [New Zealand] 34.230
Men’s Sprint Final [WR: 9.347] [best of three races].
GOLD: Sam Webster [New Zealand] 2-0 [10.123 and 9.952]. Silver: Jack Carlin [Scotland]; Bronze: Jacob Schmidt [Australia] 2-0 [10.327 and 10.475]
Women’s 25 Kilometre Points Race Final.
Another exciting race on the track where points are scored for various sprint stages of the race, with the final sprint seeing Australia’s Alexandra Manly just failing to get into the medals. Extra points are also allocated if a rider overtakes the rest of the field, which in fact, the Wales rider managed to do, making it very difficult for her to be beaten in the end result. The eventual outcome saw – GOLD: Elinor Barker [Wales] 40 points; Silver: Katie Archibald [Scotland] 20 points; Bronze: Neah Evans [Scotland] 17 points. Australia’s Alexandra Manly finished 4th with 14 points, Amy Cure, 7th on 8 points, and Georgia Baker, 21st, 0 points.
Men’s 15 km Scratch Race Final
GOLD: Sam Welsford [Australia] Silver: Campbell Stewart [New Zealand]; Bronze: Christopher Latham [England]. Australia’s great track and road cyclist finished 10th, while Leigh Howard did not finish the race.
This was a wonderful win by Welsford who came from well back at the beginning of the last lap, behind the leading Englishman who had been front for much of the latter stages of the event – charged down the straight, with Stewart beside, both overtaking the English rider in the final metres. An exciting finish to the night, following close on the winning Women’s swimming relay gold win.
Hockey
Men Pool A: Australia defeated South Africa 4-0; Canada defeated Scotland 2-0;
Men Pool B: Malaysia defeated Wales 2-0; India drew with Pakistan 2-2;
Women Pool A: South Africa drew with Malaysia 1-1;
Women Pool B: Australia defeated Ghana 5-0.
Lawn Bowls
Australian results: It was a night of mixed emotions for the Australian Jackaroos in the Lawn Bowls competition after they earned passage to two semifinals, but fell short in the remaining two quarterfinals. Australia’s golden girl Karen Murphy was sensationally eliminated from the blue-ribbon women’s singles event and the reigning men’s world pairs champions also bowed out in the quarters, after both were upstaged by teams they defeated in the sectional rounds.
Women’s Singles, Round 5: Karen Murphy [Australia] defeated Katherine Beattir [Northern Ireland] 21-17; Men’s Triples Round 5: Australia defeated Brunei Darrasalam 29-4; Men’s Pairs Round 5: Australia defeated Canada 15-12; Woman’s Fours, Round 5: Australia defeated Malaysia 14-13; Mixed B2/B3 Pairs, Round 3 Australia defeated New Zealand 16-11 ; Open B6/B7/B8 Round 3: England defeated Australia 16-12..
Quarter Final [all] results.
Woman’s Fours Quarter Finals: Australia defeated Malaysia 14-12; Canada defeated Scotland 24-11; Malta defeated India 13-11; South Africa defeated New Zealand 16-8;
Men’s Triples Quarter Finals: Australia defeated New Zealand 25-10; Canada defeated Jersey 17-7; Scotland defeated Wales 15-13; Norfolk Island defeated England 19-18 .
Men’s Pairs Quarter Finals: Malta defeated Australia 15-13; Cook Islands defeated South Africa 15-14; Scotland defeated Malaysia 16-11; Wales defeated New Zealand 20-7.
Women’s Singles Quarter Finals: Colleen Piketh [South Africa] defeated Karen Murphy [Australia] 21-19; Jo Edwards [New Zealand] defeated Emma Firyana Saroji [Malaysia] 21-9; Kelly McKerihen [Canada] defeated Caroline Brown [Scotland] 21-12; Laura Daniels [Wales] defeated Carmen Anderson [Norfolk Island] 21-13.
Netball
Woman’s Pool A: South Africa defeated Northern Ireland 9-35; Barbados defeated Fiji 65-44.
Woman’s Pool B: Uganda defeated Malawi 54-52; Scotland defeated Wales 51-47
Squash
As many aspects of this competition move towards the finals games, we3 look at today’s Australian results, in order of play. Leading Australian female squash player Donna Urquhart has been knocked out of contention for a singles medal, following a 3-1 defeat from England’s Sarah-Jane Perry. The three-time Commonwealth Games athlete was the underdog throughout the match against the no. 4 seed, rising up in the second game 5-11, but was Perry’s skills shone through finishing off the third and fourth game 11-2, 11-15. “It was tough but the crowd today was amazing. I really wanted to win for the Australian crowd and I have it everything I could. I just had a really though opponent and she played amazingly,” Urquhart said.
Women’s Singles Quarter-Final: Sarah-Jane Perry [England] defeated Donna Urquhart [Australia] 3-1; Women’s Singles Classic Plate Quarter-Final: Marika Saxby [Australia] defeated Sivasamgari Subramaniam [Malaysia] on a walkover; Samantha Cornett [Canada] defeated Marika Saxby [Australia] 3-1;
Men’s Singles Quarter-Final: James Willstrop [England] defeated Cameron Pilley [Australia] 3-2;
Swimming
The morning session was dominated by a series of heats in various events, while the evening session consisted of 8 Finals, and a number of semi-finals, it is those that we shall look at in this report.
Men’s 200 metre Butterfly Final [WR 1.51.51]; The South African Chad Le Clos won this event in 2010 and 2014 and was a hot tip to make it three in a row, and become the first non-Australian to win the same Games event three times in a row. Though disappointing for the Aussies, he didn’t let his country down. GOLD: Chad Le Clos [South Africa] 1.54.00; Silver: David Morgan [Australia] 1.56.36; Bronze: Duncan Scott [Scotland] 1.56.60.Australia’s Grant Irvine finished 4th in 1.56.91.
Women’s 50 metre Freestyle Final [WR 23.67], this race featuring our Campbell sisters. A convincing win to one, and a tight finish for the minor placings. GOLD: Cate Campbell [Australia] 23.78 [broke her own Games record]; Silver [dead heat] for Bronte Campbell [Australia], and Taylor Ruck [Canada] in the same time of 24.26. No Bronze awarded subsequently. Australia’s Shayna Jack finished 4th in 24.57.
Men’s 100 metre Breaststroke Final [WR 57.13] – a little unusual outcome, with no Aussies making up the medal results!! GOLD: Adam Peaty [England – the current World and Games record holder, broke his own Games record] 58.84; Silver: James Wilby [England] 59.43; and Bronze: Cameron Van Der Burgh [South Africa] 59.44. Australia’s Jake Packard finished 4th in 59.70, and Matt Wilson was 7th in 1.00.48. Liam Hunter of Australia finished 5th in his semi-final race.
Women’s 100 metres Backstroke Final: [WR 58.10]. Again, the existing World and Games record holder broke her own Games record in winning the event, while Australia’s Emily Seebolm was attempting to win this vent for the third time in a row – in fact, Emily was leading for a large part of the race, but was out-touched on the line!! GOLD: Kylie Masse [Canada] 58.63; Silver: Emily Seebolm [Australia] 58.66; and Bronze: Taylor Ruck [Canada] 58.97. Australia’s Kaylee McKeown finished 4th in 1.00.08, and Hayley Baker was equal 6th in 1.00.74.
Women’s 200 metre Breaststroke Final [WR 2.19.11]. The Australians were going for 7 wins in a row in this event, but it didn’t happen. GOLD: Tatjana Schoenmaker [South Africa] 2.22.02; Molly Renshaw [England] 2.23.28; Bronze: Chloe Tutton [Wales] 2.23.42. Australia’s Taylor McKeown finished 5th in 2.25.51, and Tessa Wallace was 6th in 2.26.59. Georgia Bohl finished 4rh in her heat.
Men’s SB8 [Para] 100 metre Breaststroke Final [WR 1.07.01]. Well, our brave para lads scored the trifecta in this event, in a wonderful display of swimming under the circumstances of their particular disabilities, certainly not evident in the pool. GOLD: Timothy Disken [Australia] 1.12.42]; Silver: Timothy Hodge [Australia] 1.15.80; Bronze: Blake Cochrane [Australia] 1.18.75.
Women’s SM10 [Para] 200 metre Individual Medley Final [WR 2.24.90] Another group of brave athletes, who had all come through seemingly insurmountable physical and mental odds to get to this stage. The winner was the current World Champion and World record holder, and again won convincingly. GOLD: Sophie Pascoe [New Zealand] 2.27.72; Silver: Aurelie Revard [Canada] 2.31.79; Bronze: Katherine Downie [Australia] 2.31.81. Australia’s Paige Leonhardt finished 4th in 2.32.68, and Jasmine Greenwood finished 5th in 2.34.97. Jasmine is just 13 years of age.
Women’s 4 x 200 metres Relay Final: [WR 7.42.08]. Prior to this event, Australian relay teams had won the event over the past three Commonwealth Games. Tonight’s team were in front at the end of each leg, while the 4th swimmer, was severely challenged by the individual 200 metre champion, over the final 50 metres – she rose to the challenge, and roared on by the home crowd, gave Australia another swimming medal in a relay. GOLD: Australia: 7.48.04 [Games Record] [in swimming order – Emma McKeon, Brianna Throssell, Leah Neale, and Ariarne Titmus]; Silver: Canada; Bronze: England.
During the evening session, semi-finals were held in three events:
Men’s 50 metre Backstroke: Mitch Larkin 1st in Semi-final 1 [24.91], while Benjamin Treffers [24.99] and Zac Incerti [25.19] finished 1st and 2nd in Semi-final 2.
Women’s 50 metre Butterfly: Semi-final 1 saw Cate Campbell [25.56] and Holly Barratt [25.88] finish 1st & 2nd, while in Semi-final 2, young Madeline Groves swam brilliantly to win in the fastest qualifying time of 25.54.
Men’s 100 metre Freestyle: in Semi-final 1, Cameron McEvoy won in 48.50, and Jack Cartwright finished 3rd in 48.73.The 2nd Semi-final saw Kyle Chalmers finish 2bd [behind Chad Le Clos] in 48.70.
And that was our swimming sessions for Day 2.
Table Tennis
Team quarterfinal results today.
In an unfortunate turn of events, Australia’s men’s team has been knocked out in the quarterfinal. Facing Nigeria in the afternoon at Oxenford Studios in the Gold Coast, Nigeria’s team proved to be too strong, finishing the Australian side 3-1……….Women: England defeated Canada 3-1; India defeated Malaysia 3-0; ……..Men: India defeated Malaysia 3-0; Singapore defeated Canada 3-2; Nigeria defeated Australia 3-1; and England defeated Northern Island 3-0.
Triathlon Events.
Men’s PTWC Final
GOLD: Joseph Townshend [England] 1.02.39; Silver: Nic Beveridge [Australia] 1.03.28; Bronze: Bill Chaffey [Australia] 1.04.13.. Scott Crowley [Australia] finished in 5th position in 1.08.34.
Women’s PTWC Final:
GOLD: Jade Jones [England] 1.11.07; Silver: Emily Tapp [Australia] 1.12.56; Bronze: Lauren Parker [Australia] n1.13.48. Australia’s Sara Tait finished in 6th position in 1.23.32
Mixed Team Relay Final
This team event [of 4 competitors each team – two men, two womn] saw England claim the Gold in this event at Glasgow in 2014, where the English were spearheaded by the Brownlee brothers, who competed again today, as part of the English quarter. Today, an inspirational outcome for the future of the Australian triathlon competition
GOLD: Australia: 1.17.36 [Gillian Backhouse, Jacob Birtwhistle, Matthew Hauser, and Ashleigh Gentle]; Silver: England 1.18.28 ; Bronze: New Zealand 1.19.28
Weightlifting
Today’s results included an Australian Bronze medal. Total weights include combined results for Snatch, and Clean & Jerk elements of the competition.
Francois Etoundi kept the crowd at the Carrara Sports Arena crowd entertained from start to finish in the men’s 77kg division, starting off with a third-place finish in the Snatch portion of the competition and a backflip celebration for good measure. Etoundi tore his bicep on the second lift of the clean and jerk and fought through injury to claim bronze on his final lift of the day. Seen Lee injured her elbow and failed to record a successful lift in the Snatch portion of the women’s 63kg division, ending her day prematurely. Boris Elesin lifted a combined 301kg in the men’s 85 kg competition, finishing ninth and equalling his personal best.
Men’s 77kg Final [WR 380]. GOLD: Sathish Kumar Silvalin [India] 317; Silver: Jack Oliver [England] 312; Bronze: Francois Etoundi [Australia] 305. Francois immigrated from the Cameroon – His father was a weightlifter and got him into the sport at age 14, after his mother encouraged him to stop boxing.
Men’s 85 kg Final [WR 396] – GOLD: Venkat Rahul Ragala [India] 338; Silver: Don Opeloge [Samoa] 331; Bronze: Muhamad Fazrul Azrie [Malaysia] 328. Australia’s Boris Elesin finished 9th on 301.
Women’s 63 Kg Final [WR 262] GOLD: Maude Charron [Canada] 220; Silver: Zoe Smith [England] 207; and Bronze: Mona Pretorius [South Africa] 206. Australia’s Seen Lee did not complete the competition.
The 21st Commonwealth Games – Gold Coast , Part 3: 8 April
Day 4 of competition, Sunday, 8th April
The athletics competition started today – probably for this writer, the sport that I most enjoy following, and it was an early start, from 7am with the men’s and women’s Race Walks taking place at Currumbin Beach front
Athletics
In fact, I will begin today’s coverage with a look at the athletics program, which is the largest of all sports across the Games, competing for 58 gold medals. Track events range from 100m and 200m sprints up to 10,000m races, as well as hurdles, relay and road events. Para sport vents include the 1,500m wheelchair race; and men and woman’s 100m races. There are also the race walks and the marathons. Field evnts include javelin, discus, hammer, shot put, high, long and triple jumps and pole vault, while the Para events include the men’s shot put, and women’s javelin and long jump. There are also the combined events for the ‘true’ athletes, the men’s decathlon [4 track, 6 field events] and the women’s heptathlon [3 track, 4 field events].
For a true Athletics fan, what a wonderful way to start a Sunday morning – a GOLD Medal to Australian champion walker, Dane Bird-Smith in the 20 kilometre Walk!!. I hoped that would be an inspiration to our girls as they set off on the same course soon afterwards.
Men’s 20 Km Walk Race Final – [WR 1.16.36].
A wonderful walk by the Australian to fight off a number of challenges to his lead throughout the race. GOLD: Dane Bird-Smith {Australia] 1.19.34; Silver: Tom Bosworth [England] 1.19.38; Bronze: Samuel Ireri Gathimba [Kenya] 1.19.51. Australia’s Michael Hosking finished 10th in 1.25.35, and Rhydian Cowley in 11th position in 1.26.12. There were only 15 starters in the race, all of whom completed the course.
Women’s 20 Km Walk Final [WR: 1.24.38]
This race continued the wonderful start to the athletics program for Australia, with our second Gold of the morning, but it was also touched with a major disappointment. Having fought her way into the lead, over a fellow Australian, with 2 kilometres to the finish line, Australia’s Claire Tallent was distressingly disqualified [her third and final warning]. Watching her anguish as she slumped to the side of the track, took this writer back to the Sydney Olympics of 2000, as I sat up the top of the Stadium, watching on the screen as Australia’s Jane Saville prepared to enter the stadium on a victory lap to the walking gold medal – only to be disqualified as she was about to enter!!
Despite that, as indicated there was joy amongst the disappointment.
GOLD: Jemima Montag [Australia] 1.32.50; Silver: Alana Barber [New Zealand] 1.34.18; Bronze: Bethan Davies [Wales] 1.36.08. Australia’s Beki Smith finished 6th in 1.36.08, while Claire Tallent was disqualified. There 13 starters in the race of whom 11 completed the course.
Men’s Hammer Throw Final [WR: 86.74]
GOLD: Nick Miller [England] 80.26[GR]; Silver: Matty Denny [Australia] 74.88; Bronze: Mark Dry [Scotland] 73.12; Australia’s Jack Dalton finished 8th with a throw 38.28, and Huw Peacock, 11th with 65.19. Matty’s eating habits changed after he missed the final of the last World Championships – said he was sick of being 130kg, so changed his food intake, and dropped 12kg in the past 6 months.. He is also a starter in the Discus competition.
Women’s 100 Metres Round 1 heats, and Semi-finals [WR: 10.49]
Australian results in the 6 Heats were – Heat 4: Melissa Breen 4th [11.65]. The fastest qualifier was 1.27 by Michelle-Lee Ahya [Trinidad & Tobago]. Breen did not make it into the semi-finals.
The fastest time in the semi-finals was 11.06 secs by Khalifa St. Fort [Trinidad & Tobago]
Men’s 100 Metres Round 1 heats , and Semi-finals [WR: 10.49]
Australian results in the 9 heats were – Heat 7: Josh Clarke, 3rd 10.56; Heat 8: Rohan Browning, 3rd in 10.29;. Heat 9: Trae Williams, 1st in 10.28. The fastest time was by Yohan Blake [Jamaica] of 10.15 in Heat 8.
The three semi-finals saw Yohan Blake [Jamaica] run the fastest time in SF1 of 10.06. Trae Williams ran in SF1, and finished 4th in 10.28, while Rohan Browning, in SF2, finished 3rd in 10.26. He went within a ‘whisper’ of making the Final: He recorded the same rime as the 2nd placegetter in his semi-final [only the first 2 advanced plus the 6 next fastest. He would also finished 9th in the overall rankings, on the same time as the 8th position, but eliminated when his time was expanded to thousandths of a second, just edged out!!
Women’s T38 [Para] Long Jump Final
A successful competition by all three Australian competitors.
GOLD:Olivia Breen [Wales] 4.86; Silver: Erin Cleaver [Australia] 4.36; Bronze: Taylor Doyle [Australia] 4.22. Australia’s Kailyn Joseph finished 5th with 4.06
Men’s 400 Metres Round 1 heats [WR 43.03]
There were 6 heats today. Australia’s Steven Solomon [our only runner] ran in Heat 5, and won that Heat in 45.39 secs. The fastest time in the heats was in Heat 6, was Bralon Taplin [Grenada] in 45.11. The Australian’s time was 2nd fastest.
Men’s Shot Put Qualifying [WR: 23.12]
This event was divided into Groups A and B. Australia’s Damian Birkinhead had the best throw in Group A, with 20.17. The lading qualifying throw was by Tomas Walsh [New Zealand] in Group A with 22.45.
Men’s 5000 Metres Final [WR: 12.37.35]
No heats in this classic race, straight to the final. The early laps of this 12 ½ lap race were described by the commentators as ‘slow pedestrian’, not what the public would like to see, all being ‘bad boys’ going too slow].
The starting list of 17 runners included three Australians – Stewart McSweyn [5th in 13.58.96], Morgan McDonald [8th in 14.11.37], and David McNeill [12th in 14.24.51] .
The race did hot up as the laps went past, and as usual, the African born runners would dominate the finish, hence the great by McSweyn to finish in 5th position.
GOLD: Joshua Kiprui Cheptegie [Uganda] 12.50.83; Silver: Mohammad Ahmed [Canada] 13.52.78; Bronze: Edward Pingua Zakayo [Kenya] 13.54.06. Ugandan runners finished 4th and 6th.
Artistic Gymnastics – Medal Events
Men’s Floor Exercise Final
GOLD: Marios Georgiou [Cyprus]: 13.966; Silver: Scott Morgan [Canada]: 13.833; Bronze: Daniel Purvis [Scotland] 13.733. No Australians in the final eight.
Men’s Pommel Horse Final
GOLD: Rhys McClenaghan [Northern Ireland] 15.100; Silver: Max Whitlock [England] 15.100; Bronze: Zachary Clay [Canada]14.300. Australia’s Christopher Remkes finished 6th with 13.733, and Michael Tone finished 7th with 12.433.
Women’s Vault Final
GOLD: Shallon Olsen [Canada] 14.566; Silver: Elizabeth Black [Canada] 14.233; Bronze: Emily Whitehead [Australia] 13.849. Australia’s Georgia Godwin finished 6th with 13.650.
Men’s Rings Final
GOLD: Courtney Tulloch [England] 14.833; Silver: Nile Wilson [England] 14.400; Bronze: Scott Morgan [Canada] 14.000.
Women’s Uneven Bars Final
GOLD: Georgia-Mae Fenton [England] 14.600; Silver: Brittany Rogers [Canada] 14.200; Bronze: Georgia Godwin [Australia] 13.433. Australia’s Georgia-Rose Brown finished 4th with 13.233.
Badminton
Mixed Team event Semi Final matches played today..
India defeated Singapore 3-1. Malaysia defeated England 3-0
Basketball
The Australian women’s team have identified Canada as the biggest threat to their quest for gold. They clashed tonight in the evening session of the preliminary rounds of the GC2018 Basketball competition in Townsville.
Women’s Preliminary Pool A: England defeated Mozambique 78-51; Australia defeated Canada 100-61;
Women’s Preliminary Pool B: New Zealand defeated India 90-65; Jamaica defeated Malaysia.81-58
Men’s Preliminary Pool B: England defeated Cameroon 81-54; Scotland defeated India 96-81 .
Beach Volleyball
Men: Pool A: Australia defeated SKN 2-0 [21-3,21-11]
Women: Pool A: Australia defeated Scotland 2-0 [21-9, 21-9]
Boxing
India’s Mery Kom is a mother of three, a politician, boxing star and the subject of a blockbuster 2014 Bollywood movie. She will be out to progress through to the 45-48kg quarterfinals in her quest for gold today – well, Mary managed to do that, as we see below.
Women’s 45-48 KG Quarter-finals:
Alnusha Dilrusshi Koddithuwakku [Sri Lanka] defeated Brandy Barnes [Cayman Islands]; MC Mery Kom [India] defeated Megan Gordon [Scotland]; Kristina O’Hara [Northrn Island] vs Lynsey Holdaway [Wales]; Lethabo Modukanele [Botswana] vs Tasmyn Benny [New Zealand].
Women’s 69 kg Qurrter-finals
Rosie Eccles [Wales] defeated Magan Maka [Tonga]] ; Kaye Scott [Australia] defeated Itunu Oriala [Nigeria] 5-0; Sandy Ryann [England vs Lavlina Borgohain [India]; and Marie-Jeanne Parent [Canada] vs Lorna Simbi [Kenya].
Men’s 75kg Round of 16: Viksas Krishan [India] defeated Campbell Somerville [Australia] 5-0;
Men’s 64 kg Round of 16. LiamWilson [Australia] vs John Ume [PNG];
Cycling Track
It was the final day of Track Cycling, with four Gold medals being offered, which saw a successful night for the Aussie riders
Men’s 1000 Metres Time Trial Final [WR: 56.03]
This saw a brilliant come from behind winner by Australia’s Matthew Glaerzer – described as ‘redemption’ for his shock failure in the sprint event on Saturday – in his words, he wanted “to get one up for Australia, because I owed them one for yesterday..” He was the last rider in the Time Trial, and executed a brilliant performers to come over the top of the leaders.
GOLD: Matthew Glaetzer [Australia] 59.340]; Silver: Edward Dawkins [New Zealand] 59.928; Bronze: Callum Skinner [Scotland] 1.01.083:
Women’s 10 km Scratch Race Final
Another wonderful performance by the three Australian, working well as an ‘unofficial’ team, and paving the way for the eventual winner – as one reporter put it “Cure’s victory was built on the sheer grunt work from her teammates…who covered every more earlier in the race to set a tempo in the closing stages that prevented any counter attack” [Reece Homfray, Melbourne Herald-Sun].
GOLD: Amy Cure [Australia]; Silver: Neah Evans [Scotland] Bronze: Emily Kay [England]. Australia’s Annette Edmondson and Ashlee Ankudinoff finished in 14th and 17th positions, after racing with Cure for the last few laps before dropping back in the closing lap and a bit. There were 24 starters in the race.
Women’s Keirin Final
The Australian duo in the final gained the quinella.
GOLD: Stephanie Morton [Australia]; Silver: Kaarle McCulloch [Australia]; Bronze: Natasha Hansen [New Zealand]. That win to Morton [on top of her wins in the Team and Individual Sprints] joins Anna Meares, Kathy Watt and Cameron Meyer as the only Australian cyclists to win three gold medals at the one Games. Morton won her heat in the event, while McCulloch finishd 2nd in her heat
Men’s 40kmPoints Scratch Race Final
GOLD: Mark Stewart [Scotland] 81pts; Silver: Campbell Stewart [New Zealand] 69pts; Bronze: Ethan Hayter [England] 68pts. A brave effort by our champion cyclist , Cameron Meyer, who on the last lap, was still in line for the bronze, but didn’t have the finish to gain the necessary points. Cameron finished in 4th position with 50 points. Australia’s Kellard O’Brien finished in 8th place vwith 45 points, while Leigh Howard finished 21st.
Hockey
Women Pool A: India defeated England 2-1
Men Pool A: New Zealand defeated South Africa 6-0; Australia defeated Scotland 6-1;
Women Pool B: New Zealand drew with Canada 0-0;
Men Pool B: India defeated Wales 4-3; England drew with Pakistan 2-2
Lawn Bowls
Men’s Triples Gold Medal match
Scotland defeated Australia: 19-14 [Aussies: Barrie Lester, Nathan Rice & Aron Sherriff];
Bronze Medal Match: Norfolk Island defeated Canada 1-16
[Australia defeated Canada in the Semi-final 20-5]
Women’s Singles Gold/ Medal match
Laura Daniels [Wales] vs Jo Edwards [New Zealand]
Bronze Medal match: South Africa vs Canada
Mixed B2/B3 Pairs, Round 4: Australia defeated Wales 18-6
Women’s Fours Semi-final: Australia defeated Canada 10-9
Open B6/B7/B8 Triples Round 4: Australia defeated Wales 22-12
Netball
Women: Pool A: Jamaica defeated Northern Island 79-41; Australia defeated South Africa 60-38;
Women: Pool B: England defeated Uganda 55-45; Malawi defeated New Zealand 57-53 [I believe this was the first time that a team other than Australia had defeated New Zealand in the Commonwealth Games].
Shooting
The shooting competitions commenced today, and include full-bore, pistol, rifle and shot gun, 19 medal events in all. The full-bore events are known as the Queen’s Prize individual, and the Queens Prize pairs, and are open to anybody, meaning women and men compete against each other. There were three finals on the program today, which saw two medal wins to Australian shooters – Silver for Elena Galiabovitch, and Gold for Dane Sampson. A clinching victory with the final two shots in the Men’s Air Rifle, a teary-eyed Sampson, who had been shooting since he was 12 years old, embraced his father, who is the President of Target Rifle Australia and was the chief range officer for qualification rounds of his event. The day’s results were:
Women’s 10 Metre Air Pistol Final
GOLD: Manu Bhaker [India]: 24.09; Silver: Heena Sidhu [India] 234.0; Bronze: Elena Galiabovitch [Australia] 214.9.
Men’s 10 Metre Air Pistol Final:
GOLD: Dane Sampson [Australia] 245.0; Silver: Abdullah Hel Baki [Bangladesh] 244.7; Bronze: Ravi Kumar [India] 224.1. Australia’s Alex Hoberg finished 4th [204.6]
Women’s Skeet Qualifying, and Final
Order of finishing in qualification: 3. Aislin Jones 71+1 [Qualified for the final] 9. Laura Coles 67. Best result was 74 by competitor from Cyprus
In the final: GOLD: Andri Eleftheriou [Cyprus] 52; Silver: Amber Hill [England] 49; Panagiota Andreou [Cyprus] 40. Australia’s Aislin Jones finished 6th with a score of 13.
Men’s Skeet Qualification, Day 1.
Australia’s James Boulding finished 9th [47], and Paul Adams finished 10th [47]
Squash
There were no Australians featured in any of the semi-finals or finals completed today.
Swimming
The women’s 200m backstroke loomed as an epic battle between Australia and Canada. All eyes would be on Aussie star Emily Seebohm and 100m backstroke champion Kylie Masse. The men’s 100m will test Olympic champion Kyle Chalmers and teammate Cameron McEvoy.
Needless to say, it would be another exciting night at the swimming pool – with Australian swimmers picking up 5 Gold, 4 Silver and 4 Bronze, including a third relay win. The night’s results were as follows.
Women’s 200 metre Backstroke Final [WR:2.04.06]
GOLD: Kylie Masse [Canada] 2.05.98 [GR]; Silver: Taylor Ruck [Canada] 2.06.42; Bronze: Emily Seebolm [Australia] 2.06.82. Australia’s Kaylee McKeown finished 4th in 2.07.86, and Hayley Baker finished 6th in 2.11.28
Men’s 100 metre Freestyle Final [WR: 46.91]
GOLD: Duncan Scott [Scotland] 48.02; Silver: Chad Le Clos [South Africa] 48.15; Bronze: Kyle Chalmers [Australia] 48.15. This was a brilliant finish by the Scott to come from behind in the closing metres over the favoured likely winner. Australia’s Cameron McEvoy finished 4th in 48.44, and Jack Cartwright, 6th in 48.62.
Men’s SM8 [Para] 200 metres Individual Medley Final [WR: 2.20.01]
GOLD: Jesse Aungles [Australia] 2.30.77; Silver: Blake Cochrane [Australia] 2.32.72; Bronze: Philippe Vachon [Canada] 2.34.03. Australia’s Rogan Bright finished 6th 2.42.89
Women’s S9 [Para] 100 metre Freestyle Final [WR 1.00.91]
GOLD: Lakeisha Patterson [Australia] 1.03.02; Silver: Alice Tai [England] 1.03.07; Bronze: Elle Cole [Australia] 1.03.36. Australia’s Emily Beecroft finished 4th in 1.03.76.
Women’s 200 metres Individual Medley Final [WR: 2.06.12]
GOLD: Siobban Marie O’Connor [England] 2.09.80; Silver: Sarah Darcel [Canada] 2.11.14; Bronze: Erika Seltentreich-Hodgson [Canada] 2.11.74’ Australia’s Blair Evans finished 5th in 2.12.76, and Meg Bailey was 8th in 2.14.58.
Men’s 50 metre Backstroke Final [WR: 24.04] – this was the first of two trifectas for the Aussies swimmers!!
GOLD: Mitch Larkin [Australia] 34.68; Silver: Benjamin Treffers [Australia] 24.84; Bronze: Zac Incerti [Australia] 25.06.
Women’s 50 metre Butterfly Final [WR 24.43]
GOLD: Cate Campbell [Australia] 25.59; Silver: Holly Barratt [Australia] 25.67; Bronze: Madeline Groves [Australia] 25.69
Men’s 4 x 200 metre Relay Final [WR: 6.58.55]
GOLD: AUSTRALIA: 7.05.97 [GR] [Alexander Graham, Kyle Chalmers, Elijah Winnington, and Mack Horton]; Silver: England: 7.08.57; Bronze: 7.09.89
Table Tennis
Women’s Team Semi-finals: Singapore defeated Australia 3-0; India defeated England 3-0;
Gold/Silver Medal Match: Singapore defeated India 3-1.
Bronze Medal match: England defeated Australia 3-1 [Australia: Melissa Tapper, Jian Fang Lay, Miao Miao]
Weightlifting
Women’s 69 kg Final: [WR: 276]
GOLD: Punam Yudav [India] 222; Silver: Sarah Davies [England] 217; Bronze: Apolonia Vaivai [Fiji]. Australia’s Pip Malone finished 5th with lift of 209.
Men’s 94kg Final. [WR 417]
GOLD: Steven Kari [PNG] 216 [CR/GR]; Silver: Boady Santavy [Canada] 369; Bronze: Vikas Thakur [India] 351. No Aussies in the final.
Women’s 75 Kg Final [WR 296]
GOLD: Emily Godley [England] 222; Silver: Marie-Eve Beauchemin [Canada] 221; Bronze: Laura Hughes [Wales]. Australia’s Stephanie Davies finished 5th with 197.
At the conclusion of Sunday’s competition, the Podium listing reads as follows – G – S – B [Total Medals]
Australia: 31-25-28 [84]
England: 19-19-9 [47]
Canada: 7-15-10 [32]
India: 7-2-3 [12]
Scotland: 6-7-10 [23]
New Zealand: 4-7-6 [17]
South Africa: 4-1-4 [9]
Wales: 3-3-3 [9]
The 21st Commonwealth Games – Gold Coast , Part 3: 9-10 April
Day 5 of competition, Monday, 9th April
Athletics
Day 2 of the athletics program got underway today with a morning and evening session, and it would include the beginning of the Men’s Decathlon event [described below].
The Men’s Decathlon event
The decathlon is a combined event in athletics consisting of ten track and field events. The word decathlon is of Greek origin. Events are held over two consecutive days and the winners are determined by the combined performance in all. Performance is judged on a points system in each event, not by the position achieved in each specific events. The decathlon is contested by male athletes, while female athletes typically compete in the heptathlon, to be decided later in the week.. In the Commonwealth Games, the decathlon is divided into a two-day competition, with the track and field events held in the order below. Traditionally, all decathletes who finish the event, rather than just the winner or medal winning athletes, do a round of honour together after the competition. Day 1 events are 100 metres, long jump, shot put, high jump and 400 metres. Day 2 has the 110 metres hurdles, discus throw, pole vault, javelin throw, and 1500 metres. I would describe the decathlon [and heptathlon athletes] as the most genuine all-round athletes of any competition
As indicated there were 5 events held today, with 12 competitors, including two Australians, a relatively small field.
100 metres, divided into 2 heats. Australia’s Kyle Cranston competed in Heat 1, and finished 2nd in 11.16 [earned 825 points]. In Heat 2, Cedric Dubler finished 3rd in 10.69 [931 points]. The best result of the 2 heats was recorded by Damian Warner [Canada] in 10.29 [1025 points].
In the Long Jump competition, the best jump was performed by Cedric Dubler [Australia] with 7.59 [957 points]. Kyle Cranston finished 8th with a jump of 7.18, and 857 points]. Second best result came from the Canadian, Damian Warner, with 7.54 [945 points].
The Shot Put category was won by Lindon Victor of Grenada, with a put of 15.79 [838 pts]. Kyle Cranston finished 7th, 13.59 [703 pts], and Cedric Dubler, 11th with 12.34 [627 pts].
The High Jump competition resulted in Cedric Dubler finishing 3rd, with a jump of 2.01 [813 pts], and Kyle Cranston was 8th, with 1.92 [731 pts]. The leading jump was 2.07, by Pierce Lepage of Canada [868 pts].
The v400 metres, final event for Day 1, was run over two heats. In Heat 1, the winner was Pierce Lepage [Canada] in a time of 47.81 [918 pts]. Kyle Cranston finished 4th in 49.94 [817 pts]. In Heat 2, the winner was Damian Warnr of Canada in 48.12 [903 pts]. Cedric Dubler finished 2nd, in 48.39 [890 pts].
After 5 events, the top three competitors are 1. Damian Warner [Canada] 4509 pts. 2. Pierce Lepage [Canada] 4380 pts. 3. Lindon Victor [Grenada] 4290 pts. Australia’s Cedric Dubler sits in 4th position on 4218 pts, and Kyle Cranston in 8th position on 3933 pts. There are now only 10 competitors left in the Decathlon after two athletes did not complete today’s events.
Men’s High Jump Qualifying event commenced today, divided into two groups.[WR: 2.45]
In Group A, Australia’s Brandon Starc finished 3rd with a jump of 2.21, while in Group B, Joel Baden finished 8th with 2.15. The best result of the two groups was a leap of 2.21 by 12 athletes, the number required to advance to the Final , including Brandon Starc.
Women’s 400 metres heats were held during the morning session [WR: 47.60]. There were 5 heats, which included 3 Australian girls. The fastest time recorded in the heats was in Heat 2, won by Stephenie McPherson [Jamaica] in 50.80. For Australia, Benere Oboya came 6th in Heat 3 [55.62], Anneliese Rubie, 1st in Heat 4 [52.32] and Morgan Mitchell. 5th in Heat 5 [52.81]. Anneliese qualified 10th, and Morgan 16th for the semi-finals.
Men’s 110 metre Hurdles [WR: 12.80], run over 2 heats, leading to tomorrow’s Final
In Heat 1, Nicholas Hough of Australia [our only competitor] finished 3rd in 13.46, and qualified for the final. The fastest qualifier was Andrew Pozzi of England, in 13.29.
Men’s T54 [Para] 1500 metres ‘Wheelchair’ event. Two heats were held, for the Final on Tuesday. In Heat 1, Jake Lappin of Australia finished 1st in 3.11.72, while Sam Rizzo of Australia finished in 4th place, in a time of 3.12.91. In the 2nd heat, Australia’s Kurt Fearnley OAM, finished 2nd in 3.06.72. The winner of that heat – Richard Chiassaro [England] – gained the fastest qualifying time of 3.05.76, a new Games record, initially broken by Lappin in the 1at heart. Both Fearnley and Lappin qualified for the final. In Fearnley’s words [who won Gold in the 1500 metre event at Delhi in 2010, and Silver at Glasgow in 2014] “The Games experience is unique and inspiring, as para athletes compete alongside their able-body compatriots in their respective nations’ colours, striving to win gold. You’ll never get a more accurate representation of community within the sporting landscape, and hopefully those who are reading this get to appreciate this as much as I do”.
Women’s F46 Javelin Throw [Para] Final
Gold: Hollie Arnold [Wales]: 44.43 [this was a new World Record throw in this event]; Silver: Holly Robinson [New Zealand] 43.32; Bronze: Friana Kwevira [Vanuatu] 24.54.
Men’s T38 [Para] 100 metre Final
GOLD: Evan O’Hanlon [Australia] 11.09; Silver: Dylan Buis [South Africa] 11.33; Bronze: Charl Du Toit [South Africa] 11.35. Australia’s Samuel Walker finished 6th in 11.80
Women’s 1500 metres, Round 1, Heats 1 and 2. [WR. 3.50.07]
Heat 1 was won as expected by South Africa’s somewhat controversial runner, Caster Semenya in 4.05.86. Australia’s Georgia Griffith finished 2nd in 4.06.41 [ a Personal Best]. Heat 2 was won by Beatrice Chepkoech [Kenya] in 4.08.29, while Australia’s Linden Hall finished 3rd in 4.08.64, and Zoe Buckman, 8th in 4.11.78. All three Australians qualified for Tuesday’s final.
Men’s 400 metres Semi-finals [three of them] saw the following results.[WR: 43.03].
SF1: Australia’s Steven Solomon finished 3rd, in 45.55, behind Isaac Makwala [Botswana] in 45.00. SF2 was won by Bralon Taplin [Grenada] in 45.44, while SF3 was won by Muhammed Anas Yahiya [India] in 45.44. Solomon qualified 6th for the final on Tuesday.
Men’s Shotput Final [WR: 23.12]
GOLD: Tomas Walsh [New Zealand] 21.41; Silver: Chukwuebuka Enekwechi [Nigeria] 21.14; Bronze: Tim Nedow [Canada] 20.91. Australia’s Damien Birkinhad finished 5th with 20.77.
Woman’s 10,000 Metres Final [WR: 20.17.45]. Your writer actually missed this race [due to a timing misjudgement], one of the highlights of an athletics program together with the Men’s equivalent]. Australia had three Australian girls in the starting field of 19 runners.
GOLD: Stella Chesang [Uganda] in 31.45.30. Silver: Stacy Ndiwa [Kenya] 31.46.36; Bronze: Mercyline Chelangat [Uganda] – African runners dominating the race as in past competitions, with positions 4 – 12 including athletes from Uganda [2], Kenya [1], Tanzania [1] and Rwanda [1]. But there were two Australians amongst that group – Celia Sullohern, finished 6th in 31.50.75, and Madelin Hills came 8th in 32.01.04, while Eloise Wellkings finishd in 16th position in 32.51.47.
WOMEN’S 100 METRE FINAL [WR: 10.49] – the winner here was expected to be a strong competitor against Jamaica’s Williams, and that would prove to be the case.
1.GOLD:Michelle-Lee Ahye [Trinidad and Tobago] in 11.14; 2.Silver: Christania Williams [Jamaica] 11.21; 3.Bronze: Gayon Evans [Jamaica] 11.22 followed by 4. Asha Philip [England] 11.28; 5. Natasha Morrison [Jamaica]; 6. Khalifa St. Fort [Trinidad & Tobago] 11.37; 7. Reyare Thomas [Trinidad & Tobagp] 11.51; and 8.Halitie Hor [Ghana] 11.54.
This was the 5th Commonwealth Games in a row that an athlete from a different nation has won the event, and I believe it is the first Gold Medal to Trinidad & Tobago.
MEN’S 100 METRE FINAL [WR: 9.58]. This was the first time that athletes from South Africa had featured in the final, and the outcome below was unexpected. Jamaica’s Yohan Blake, who for so long had run in the shadow of Usain Bolt, was expected to win the race, But as we see here, he didn’t finish behind Bolt this time, but in fact, behind two South Africans.
1.GOLD: Akane Simbine [South Africa] in 10.06; 2.Silver: Henricho Bruintjies [South Africa] 10.17; 3. Bronze: Yohan Blake [Jamaica] 10.19; 4. Seye Ogunlewe [Nigeria] 10.19; 5. Kemar Hyman [Cayman Islands] 10.21; 6. Jason Rogers [St. Kitts & Nevis] 10.24; and 7.Enoch Olaoluwa Adegoke [Nigeria] 10.35. Adam Gemili of England did not start.
Yes, a lengthy report, but a very busy program.
Artistic Gymnastics
Today, the final day of this program, saw Australian success which didn’t really get the recognition on the television coverage, that was deserved. As reported from one source, of which there were few – “A 147cm-tall pocket rocket who started life in a Filipino orphanage has become Australia’s latest Commonwealth Games hero, snatching a historic gymnastics gold medal. Inspirational Christopher Remkes led a stunning medal charge in the final day finale at Coomera Indoor Sports Centre, grabbing gold on the vault, while teammate Alexandra Eade took home gold in the women’s floor. Remkes, who was adopted by South Australian couple Mike and Dora Remkes as a two year old, said his background was the force behind his success, in an emotional tribute to his adoptive parents”
Today’s results, which included two Gold, and one Silver for Australia, were as follows.
Men’s Vault Final
GOLD: Christopher Remkes [Australia] 14.799; Silver: Courtney Tulloch [England] 14.666; Bronze: Dominick Cunningham [England] 14.333.
Men’s Parallel Bars Final
GOLD: Marios Georgiou [Cyprus] 14.533; Silver: Nile Wilson [England] 14.533; Bronze: Frank Baines [Scotland] 14.400
Women’s Balance Beam Final
GOLD: Alice Kinsella [England] 13.700; Silver: Georgia-Rose Brown [Australia] 13.066; Bronze: Kelly Sim [England] 13.033. Australia’s Emily Whitehead finished in 5th position with a score of 12.500
Men’s Horizontal Bar Final
GOLD: Nile Wilson [England] 14.533; Silver: Cory Paterson [Canada] 14.000; Bronze: James Hall [England] 14.000. Australia’s Michal Tone finished 5th with 12.733.
Women’s Floor Exercise Final
GOLD: Alexandra Eade [Australia] 13.333; Silver: Latalia Bevan [Wales] 13.300; Bronze: Shallon Olsen [Canada] 13.266. Australia’s Georgia-Rose Brown finished 5th on 13.100.
Badminton
The Mixed Teams Medal events were held today.
GOLD/SILVER Match: India defeated Malaysia 3-1
Bronze Medal match: England defeated Singapore 3-0
Basketball
Both the Australian Men and Women played matches today and were successful.
Women’s Pool A: Australia defeated England 118-55; Canada defeated Mozambique 85-53;
Men’s Pool A: Australia defeated Nigeria 97-55; New Zealand defeated Canada 82-60
Beach Volleyball
Preliminary round matches continued today – Men: Pool A: Australia [McHugh/Schumann] defeated Trinidad & Tobago 2-0 [21-13, 21-16].
Boxing
We had three Australians competing in today’s fights for three strong wins, with probably the most outstanding of those being the convincing victory by Caitlin Parker in the Women’s 75 kg category over the hot favourite for that event, and put herself in for a medal. . The Australian results were as follows.
Women’s 75 kg, Quarter-final 2: Caitlin Parker [Australia] defeated Natasha Gale [England] 5-0.
Men’s 81 kg Round of 16: Clay Waterman [Australia] defeated Shaun Lazzarini [Scotland] 4-1;
Men’s 60 kg Round of 16: Harry Garside [Australia] defeated Tryagain Ndevelo [Namibia] 5-0
Hockey
Women Pool B: Australia drew with New Zealand 0-0 [despite the score ?, described by the commentators as a great game of hockey]; Scotland defeated Ghana 5-0;
Women Pool A: South Africa defeated Wales 2-0; England defeated Malaysia 3-0.
Lawn Bowls
The highlight, for Australia, in today’s extensive program of the Lawn Bowls competition – a great boost for the sport in Australia [as if it was needed] – a wonderful win by the Women’s Fours in the final of that category.
The Gold and Bronze Medal matches fell as follows.
Women’s Fours Gold/Silver Medal match: Australia defeated South Africa 18-16 [the Aussie team consisting of Kelsey Cottrell, Carla Krizanic, Rebecca van Asch, and Natasha Scott]; Bronze Medal match: Malta defeated Canada 17-8.
Men’s Pairs: Gold Medal match: Wales defeated Scotland 12-10; Bronze Medal match: Cook Islands defeated Malta 17-11.
Round matches featuring Australia.
Women’s Pairs Round 1: Australia defeated Zambia 24-5; Men’s B2/B3 Pairs Round 5: Scotland defeated Australia 15-11; Men’s Singles Round 1: Aaron Wilson [Australia] defeated Taiki Paniani [Cook Islands] 21-6; Men’s Fours, Round 1: Australia defeated Botswana 21-5; Women’s Triples, Round 1: Australia defeated PNG 32-12; Men’s Singles, Round 2: Aaron Wilson [Australia] defeated Brendan Aquiilina [Malta] 21-17; Open B6/B7/B8 Triples, Round 5: Australia defeated New Zealand 16-11;
Netball
Women: Pool A: Australia defeated Fiji 108-23; Jamaica defeated Barbados 76-32;
Women: Pool B: England defeated Wales 85-31; New Zealand defeated Scotland 60-29.
Shooting
Today’s events saw another Medal [Silver] for Australia – Kerry Bell, fell short in his final shot for the Gold, in the Men’s 10 metre Air Pistol. Results for the day were as follows.
Men’s 10 metre Air Pistol Final
GOLD: Jitu Rai [India]: 235.1; Silver: Kerry Bell [Australia] 233.5; Bronze: Om Mitharval [India] 214.3. Australia’s Daniel Repacholi finished in 4th place with 193.4.
Women’s 10 metre Air Rifle Final
GOLD: Martina Lindsay Veloso [Singapore] 247.2; Silver: Mehuli Ghosh [India] 247.2; Bronze: Apurvi Chandela [India] 225.3. Australia’s Victoria Rossiter finished 7th with 140.2, while Emma Adams finished 16th at the qualification stage.
Men’s Skeet Finals
GOLD: Georgios Achilleos [Cyprus] 57; Silver: Ben Llewellin [Wales] 56; Bronze: Gareth McAuley [Northern Ireland] 45. Australians James Bolding, and Paul Adams, finished 9th and 10th at the first qualification stage, and 9th and 7th respectively in the 2nd qualification event.
Queen’s Prize Finals Day 1: 3rd: Jim Bailey and Ben Emms [Australia] of 16 pairs.
Squash
Women’s Singles:
Gold/Silver Medal ,match: Joelle King [New Zealand] defeated Sarah-Jane Perry [England] 3-2
Bronze Medal Match: Tesni Evans [Wales] defeated Nicol David [Malaysia] 3-1.
Men’s Singles
Gold/Silver match: James Willstrop [England] defeated Paul Coll [New Zealand] 3-0
Bronze Medal match: Nafizwan Adnan [Malaysia] defeated Joel Makin [Wales] 3-2
Swimming
For the second last night of the swimming competition, it was a night of 9 finals and a handful of semi-finals, with yet more successes for the Australian team , a few surprises, and another brilliant swim by Chad Le Clos, the champion South African swimmer.
His win in the final event of the night, meant he became the most successful swimming medallist in the Commonwealth Games including previous competitions – having won 7 gold, 3 silver and 6 bronze [a total of 16 medals]. He would also be the first swimmer to win the 50m, 100m, and 200m Butterfly events on the same program. An outstanding performance.
The perhaps shock of the night was the victory of Bronte Campbell over her more highly fancied sister, Cate, in the 100 metres freestyle final. The latter was going for this race after winning in 2014 – only Dawn Fraser had previously won the event twice, which Australia has won on 11 occasions at the Commonwealth Games.
Let’s look at the results as they happened, which saw the Australian swimmers come up to Trifectas in the first two finals!!
Men’s 200 metre Backstroke Final [WR: 1.51.92]
GOLD: Mitch Larkin [Australia] 1.56.10; Silver: Bradley Woodward [Australia] 1.56.57; Bronze: Josh Beaver [Australia] 1.57.04
Women’s 800 metres Freestyle Final [WR: 8.04.79]
GOLD: Ariarne Titmus [Australia] 8.20.02; Silver: Jessica Ashwood [Australia] 8.27.60; Bronze: Kiah Melverton [Australia] 8.28.59
Men’s F7 50 metre Freestyle Final [WR: 27.35]
GOLD: Matthew Levy [Australia] 28.60; Silver: Christian Sadie [South Africa] 29.65; Bronze: Wei SoongToh [Singapore] 29.83. Australia’s Rohan Bright finished 5th in 30.71, and, Matthew Haanappel was 6th in 30.75.
Women’s S89 100 metres Breaststroke Final [WR: 1.13.77]
GOLD: Sophie Pascoe [New Zealand] 1.18.09; Silver: Paige Leonhardt [Australia] 1.18.81; Bronze: Madeleine Scott [Australia] 1.19.98. Australia’s Jasmine Greenwood finished in 5th position, in 1.25.23.
Men’s 50 metre Breaststroke Final [WR: 25.395]
GOLD: Cameron Van Der Burgh [South Africa] 26.58; Silver: Adam Peaty [England] 26.62; Bronze: James Wilby [England] 27.37. Australia’s Jake Packard finished 4th in 27.53, and James McKechnie finished 5th in 27.59.
Women’s 100 metre Breaststroke Final [WR: 1.04.13]
GOLD: Tatjana Schoenmaker [South Africa] 1.06.41; Silver: Kierra Smith [Canada] 1.07.05; Bronze: Georgia Bohl [Australia] 1.07.22. Australia’s Leiston Pickett finished 6th in 1.08.04, and Jessica Hansen was 8th in 1.08.53.
Women’s 200 metre Butterfly Final [WR: 2.01.81]
GOLD: Alys Thomas [Wales] 2.05.45 [GR]; Silver: Laura Taylor [Australia] 2.07.39; Bronze: Emma McKeon [Australia] 2.08.05. Australia’s Brianna Throssell finished in 5th place, in 2.08.82.
Women’s 100 metres Freestyle Final [WR: 51.71]
GOLD: Bronte Campbell [Australia] 52.27 [GR]; Silver: Cate Campbell [Australia] 52.69; Bronze: Taylor Ruck [Canada] 53.08. Australia’s Shayna Jack, finished 4th in 53.83.
Men’s 100 metres Butterfly Final [WR: 49.82]
GOLD: Chad Le Clos [South Africa] 60.65 [GR]; Silver: James Guy [England] 51.31; Bronze: Grant Irvine [Australia] 51.50. Australia’s David Morgan finished 4th in 51.94.
Men’s 50 metres Freestyle Semi-finals
In Semi-final 1, Australia’s Janes Roberts, and James Magnussen finished 2nd and 3rd in 22.11 and 22.20 behind South Africa’s Bradley Tandy [21.92]. In Semi-final 2, Cameron McEvoy finished in 2nd place in 22.00, behind England’s Benjamin Proud [21.30 GR].
Women’s 50 metre Backstroke Semi-finals
Semi-final 1 was won by Georgia Davies [Wales] in 27.86, closely followed by Holly Barratt [Australia] in 28.12. In Semi-final 2, Emily Seebolm of Australia won in 27.89, and Minna Atherton [Australia] finished in 6th place on 28.47
Table Tennis
Women’s Team
Gold/Silver Medal match: India defeated Singapore 3-1
Bronze Medal match: England defeated Australia 3-1 [Melissa Tapper, Jian Fang Lay, & Miao Miao] [Australia had previously lost the semi-final to Singapore 0-3, and India defeated England 3-0].
Weightlifting
A big crowd, and some close exciting results in the four weightlifting finals held today, which saw some great results for the Pacific Island nations, and a Silver Medal for one of our Australian lifters.
Men’s 105 kg Final [WR: 437]
GOLD: Sanelo Mao [Samoa] 360; Silver: Purdeep Singh [India] 352; Bronze: Owen Boxall [England] 351. Australia’s Ridge Barredo finished 8th with 313.
Women’s 90 kg Final [WR: 283]
GOLD: Eileen Cikamatana [Fiji] 233; SILVER: Kaity Fassina [Australia] 232; Bronze: Clementine Meukeugni N [Cameroon] 226.
Women’s +90 kg Final [WR: 348]
GOLD: Feagaiga Stowers [Samoa] 253; Silver: Charisma Amoe-Ta [Nauru] 243; Bronze: Emily Campbell [England] 242. Australia’s Deb Lovely-Acason finished in 4th spot with226.
Men’s +105kg Final [WR: 477]
GOLD: David Liti [New Zealand] 403; Silver: Lauititi Lui [Samoa] 400; Bronze: Muhammad Nooh Da [Pakistan] 222. Australia’s Damon Kelly finished 5th with 363.
Day 6 of competition, Tuesday, 10th April
We had another great day of athletics competition, the final day & night of the swimming competition [thankfully], while the Cycling Time Trials on the road took place today at the Currumbin Beachfront. Many of the team sports moved closer towards and/or well into the medal stages of their events. Four new champions were crowned in the Para Powerlifting [which has been dominated at the past two Games by Nigeria], while at Belmont Shooting Centre, Gold medals were awarded in the Women’s and Men’s events, as well as the coveted Queen’s Prize Pairs.
Any my cyclist of the moment, Cameron Meyer, well he didn’t let us down. Today I will start with the swimming competition.
Swimming
I will admit to being rather relieved that tonight was the final session of swimming. Yes they win a lot of medals for Australia, and draw a lot of publicity, but finally the television coverage can concentrate a little more on a few other sports – although on past form, we will still continue to get constant replays and interviews with the swimmers for the rest of the week! Oh well, I guess that’s what the broad population seems to thrive on!!!
However, let not my opinion detract from some more wonderful performances by our swimmers last night. Nine Finals, eight Gold Medals to Australia – of 50 Swimming Gold Medals available, Australia won 28 of them [compare that with the previous high at the Manchester Games of 27 out of 48. Threw were also a number of individual milestones throughout the course of the meet as well, as indicated as we go along.
After a morning of heats, etc, the evening session brought on the final nine Medal events to complete the program.
Women’s 400 metres Freestyle Final [WR: 3.56.46]
GOLD: Ariarne Titmus [Australia]: 4.00.93 [GR]; Silver: Holly Hibbtt [England] 4.05.31; Bronze: Eleanor Faulkner [England] 4.07.35. Australia’s Jessica Ashwood finished 5th in 4.10.32, and Mikkalya Sheridan was 6th in 4.12.05.
Men’s 50 metre Freestyle Final. [WR: 20.91]
GOLD: Benjamin Proud [England] 21.35; Silver: Bradley Tandy [South Africa] 21.81; Bronze: Cameron McEvoy [Australia] 21.92. Australia’s James Magnussen finished 6th in 22.05, and James Roberts, 7th in 22.1.
Women’s 50 metre Backstroke Final: [WR: 27.06]
GOLD: Emily Seebolm [Australia] 27.78]; Silver: Kylie Masse [Canada] 27.82; Bronze: Georgia Davies [Wales] 27.90.Australia’s Holly Barratt finished 4th in 27.96. This was Emily’s 14th medal in Commonwealth Games competitions, and her win was in fact Australia’s 300th Commonwealth Gold medal in swimming.
Men’s 200 metre Individual Medley Final. [WR: 1.54.00]
GOLD: Mitch Larkin [Australia] 1.57.67 [GR]; Silver: Duncan Scott [Scotland] 1.57.86; Bronze: Clyde Lewis [Australia] 1.58.18. Description of Mitch Larkin, at end of swimming program – ‘Larkin’s high five: presented himself as ‘Superman’ of the pool by winning a remarkable five gold medals from five events’.
Women’s S8 [Para] 50 metre Freestyle Final [WR: 29.73]
GOLD: Lakeisha Patterson [Australia] 30.14; Silver: Morgan Bird [Canada] 32.06; Bronze: Abigail Tripp [Canada] 32.49. Australia’s Tiffany Thomas-Kane finished 4th in 35.40.
Men’s S9 [Para] 100 metres Backstroke Final [WR: 1.01.75]
GOLD: Brendan Hall [Australia] 1.04.73; Silver: Timothy Hodge [Australia] 1.04.99; Bronze: Logan Powell [Australia] 1.05.29.
With the inclusion of the Para athletes in the overall Games competition, I found it often quite disturbing, whilst at the same time inspiring, to learn of the background to the specific disabilities faced by these athletes, and of the huge sacrifice, courage and dedication thy have endured and followed, in order to reach the athletic and sporting heights thy have achieved, and in the main, their general attitude to life. Kurt Fearnley demonstrated that in a television interview yesterday, following his heat of the 1500 wheelchair race at the athletics track – “Life’s great, isn’t it”. Sadly, so many of those stories were as a consequence of car accidents, or accidents associated with their sport originally.
Men’s 1500 metre Freestyle Final [WR: 14.31.02] – always a popular vent, in which Australia has featured many champion swimmers at both Olympic and Commonwealth Games level. Tonight was no exception, although the winner was not the expected Australian swimmer in this case. At the Commonwealth level, Australia have won 15 of the Gold medals held over the Games’ history. The newspaper headline next morning – “Jack dethrones Mack as new 1500m king”.
GOLD: Jack McLoughlin [Australia] 14.47.09; Silver: Daniel Jervis [Wales] 14.48.67; Bronze: Mack Horton [Australia, the anticipated winner] 14.51.05.
Women’s 4 x 100 metre Medley Relay Final [WR: 3.51.55] – Australia have won this event on the last 8 occasions.
GOLD: AUSTRALIA [3.54.36: GR] [in order of swim legs – Emily Seebolm, Georgia Bohl, Emma McKeon, and Bronte Campbell – selected ahead of her more successful sister, and a good move, a brilliant swim from behind in the freestyle leg, to get up and win the vent for the Aussies]; Silver: Canada [3.55.10], and Bronze: Wales [4.00.75]. The medal win for Emily Seebolm, meant she has won 15 medals [of all colours] at Commonwealth Games events, equalling the total won by the wonderful Susie O’Neill during her era of competition.
Men’s 4 x 100 metres Medley Relay Final: [WR: 3.27.28]
GOLD: AUSTRALIA [3.31.04 GR] [team, in order of swimming – Mitch Larkin, Jake Packard, Grant Irvine and Kyle Chalmers – again, the latter had to dig deep, and come from behind his English opponent, in order to snatch victory right at the end]; Silver: England [3.31.13]; Bronze: South Africa [3.34.79].
And so ended the swimming program – Australia’s results: 28 Gold; 21 Silver; 24 Bronze [a total of 73 swimming medals].
Athletics
The Decathlon event continued today with the final five events
Event 6: 110 metre Hurdles: conducted over 2 heats. The fastest time of the 2 heats was Damian Warner [Canada] in 13.89 [989 pts]. Australia’s Cedric Dubler, came 2nd in that heat in 14.24 [944 pts] while Kyle Cranston finished 5th in 15.12 [835 pts]
Event 7: Discus Throw: with only 10 competitors remaining, this was held as the one group. Best throw was Lindon Victor [Grenada] with 15.32 [919 pts]. The two Australians, not a strong event for them – Kyle Cranston finished 7th [730 pts] and Cedric Dubler, 9th [677 pts].
Event 8: Pole Vault: Cedric Dubler finished on top in Group A with a vault of 5.00 [910 pts], while Kyle Cranston finished Kyle Cranston finished in 2nd place in Group B, with a vault of 4.40 [731 pts]. Dubler had the best result in that competition.
Event 9:Javellin Throw By this stage, the early leader, the Canadian, Damian Warner had withdrawn from the overall event. The Javelin saw 1st place go to Lindon Victor [Grenada] with a throw of 71.10 [906 pts]. Australia’s Kyle Cranston finished 3rd with 62.36 [773 pts], and Cedric Dubler, 7th with 54.63 [657 pts]. At this stage there were 8 competitors remaining in the competition from the original 12 starters.
Event 10 [final]: 1500 metres…. The final event of the Decathlon, saw Cedric Dubler a likely medallist. All competitors ran in the one ‘heat’ of the 1500 metres. The result of that race – 1st: Ben Gregory [Wales] 4.30.57 [741 pts]; 2nd: Gilbert Koech [Kenya] 4.31.82 [733 pts]; and 3rd: Kyle Cranston [Australia] 4.31.91 [732 pts]; 4th: Cedric Dubler [Australia] 4.57.03 [577 pts].
The overall Decathlon result after the completion of the 10 events: [WR: 9045 pts]
GOLD: Lindon Victor [Grenada] 8303 points;
Silver: Pierce LePage [Canada] 8171 points;
Bronze. Cedric Dubler [Australia] 7983 points. ….Australia’s Kyle Cranston finished 5th overall with 7734 points.
Men’s 800 metres Heats {WR: 1.40.91
Consisted of three heats – in Heat 1, the Kenyan, Wycliffe Kinyamal won in 1.45.56, with Australia’s Joseph Deng, 3rd in 1.45.72. Australia’s Luke Mathews finished 2nd in a time of 1.46.53, behind the heat winner, Mijel Amos of Botswana [1.45.12]. The 3rd heat was the slowest of the three – Kenya’s Jonathan Kitilit recording 1.47.27, while ]
]Australia’s Joshua Ralph finished 3rd in 1.47. Deng and Mathews qualified for Thursday’s final.
Men’s 400 metres Hurdles, Heats [WR:46.78]
Three heats were run today, with the final to be run on Thursday.
Australia’s Ian Dewhurst, ran 3rd in Heat 3 in a time of 49.84. The fastest qualifier was Kyron McMaster [Ivory Coast] on 48.78. Dewhurst missed out on qualifying for the final.
Men’s Long Jump, Qualifying Round. [WR: 8.95 and GR: 8.30]
The best jump in Group A was by Ruswahl Samaai [South Africa] with a jump of 8.06. Australia’s Fabrice Lapierre jumped 7.76 in 6th position. In Group B, Australia’s Henry Frayne jumped a personal best and created a new Games record of 8.34 metres, to win that group. Chris Mitrevski [Australia] finished in 6th place with 7.82. All three Australians qualified for the final to be held on Wednesday.
Women’s 400 metres Hurdles heats [WR: 52.34]
This event had just the two heats – Lauren Wells [Australia] ran 5th in Heat 2, in 53.73, but did not qualify for Thursday final. The fastest time was recorded by Janieve Russell [Jamaica] in 54.01. The existing Games Records is held by Australia’s Jana Pittman [53.82 in Melbourne, 2006].
Women’s 200 Metres, Round 1: Heats [WR: 21.34]
There were five heats, with three Australian competitors. In Heat 2, Maddie Coates finished 3rd in 23.51; in Heat 3, the young Riley Day finished 3rd in 23.71; and in Heat 5, Larissa Pasternsatsky finished 5th in 23.55. The fastest time for the five heats was recorded by Canada’s Crystal in 22.72 [Heat 1]. All three Australian girls qualified to advance to the semi-final stage tomorrow.
Men’s 200 metres, Round 1, Heats [WR: 19.19]
There were nine heats to be run in this event, which concluded the ‘morning’ session of the athletics program. Australia’s only starter in the event was Alex Hartman who finished 2nd in the 5th heat, in a time of20.66, which qualified him in 6th for Wednesday’s final. The fastest time of the 9 heats was run by the winner of that heat – Jereem Richards of Trinidad & Tobago, in 20.33 seconds.
The evening program of the athletics included a number of finals, some of which were conducted in driving rain, as a mini-rain storm hit the Gold Coast area during the evening.
Women’s Triple Jump Final [WR: 15.50]
GOLD: Kimberley Williams [Jamaica] 14.64; Silver: Shanieka Ricketts [Jamaica] 14.52; Bronze: Thea Lafono [Dominica] 13.92.. There were no Australians in this final, oddly an event that we have featured a great deal in over the years unfortunately.
Men’s 110 Metres Hurdle Final [WR: 12.80] :
GOLD: Ronald Levy [Jamaica] 13.19; Silver: Hansle Parchment [Jamaica] 13.22; Bronze: Nicholas Hough [Australia] 13.38 [PB]. This was a great run by Gough to grab the Bronze by .04 of a second, even if the media next day gave it little recognition.
Women’s T54 [Para] 1500 Metres Final
The first of two very popular events this evening, the Wheelchair 1500 metre races, with the Men’s event featuring Australia’s popular veteran, Kurt Fearnley, preceded by a wonderful Quinella by the Australian girls in the women’s event. GOLD: Madison De Rozario [Australia] 3.34.06; Silver: Angela Ballard [Australia, the defending champion] 3.36.85; Bronze: Diane Roy [Canada] 3.36.97. Australia’s Eliza Ault-Connell finished in 5th position [3.38.88]. The win for De Rozario was a bit of personal retribution – she flew to the 2014 Glasgow Games and had to withdraw from her event with deep vein thrombosis, needing three days in hospital.
Men’s T54 [Para] 1500 Metres Final
He was the home town favourite, racing for the last time on the track after a highly successful career, from his wheelchair, but in the end, he was unable to chase down the Canadian winner in this race, by 17 seconds, although in the closing stages, Kurt Fearnley gave it a red hot shot –‘gave his all’ he said. IN his words “The Commonwealth Games is a special event I hold close to my heart. I’ve being in the privileged position over the years as an ambassador to tell my story….” And what an ambassador he has been, to para athletes, and to the sporting fraternity in general. After tonight’s race, he urged all Australians to be more open to providing opportunities for disabled people. He will have his last international race representing Australia in the weekend’s Para Marathon.
GOLD: Alexandre Dupont [Canada] 3.11.75; Silver: Kurt Fearnley [Australia] 3.11.92; Bronze: Jake Lappin [Australia] 3.12.60 [the heir apparent to Kurt]. Australia’s young Sam Rizzo finished 6th in 3.14.16
Women’s Hammer Throw Final [WR: 82.98]
A wonderful effort by the Australian girls in the final, picking up the two minor medals. Sydney University student, Alexandra Hulley thrived in her senior debut, to pick up the Silver medal, with the BNronze going to team-mate, Lara Nielsen…………GOLD: Julia Ratcliffe [New Zealand] 69.94; Alexandra Hulley [Australia] 68.20; Bronze: Lara Mielsen [Australia] 65.03. Australia’s Danielle McConnell finished 8th with a throw of 59.60. Much of this event was conducted in heavy rain.
Women’s 400 metres Semi-finals [WR: 47.60]
We had 5 heats of this event, with three Australian girls running. The fastest time was recorded in Heat 2 by Jamaica’s Stephenie McPherson, in 50.80. The Australian results were – Heat 3: Bendera Oboya, 6th in 55.62; Heat 4: Anneliese Rubie, 1st in 52.32, and in Heat 5, Mitchell Morgan was 5th in 52.81. Both Rubie and Morgan qualified for Wednesday’s semi-finals.
Men’s 400 Metres Final [WR: 43.03]
GOLD: Isaac Makwala [Botswana] 44.35; Silver: Baboloki Thebeb [Botswana] 45.09; Bronze: Javon Francis [Jamaica] 45.11. Australia’s Steven Solomon finished 7th in 45.64.
Women’s 1500 Metres Final [WR: 3.50.07]
Another of this writer’s favourite track events. South Africa’s controversial track star, Caster Semenya sealed the first of her planned Games’ Gold Medals by winning this event, charging home to win by 15 metres tonight [although the 800 metres is her preferred event and has given her the most success]. There was a 10 minute delay before the start of this race, with the runners at the starting line, with the technical equipment having been affected by the rain. Semenya’s early career controversy related to queries over her sexuality, however she was warmly welcomed on track by the Australian crowd, and made a point of congratulating and embracing all her opponents [and vice versa] after the race………………GOLD: Caster Semenya [South Africa] 4.00.71 [GR]; Silver: Beatrice Chepkoech [Kenya] 4.03.09]; Bronze: Melissa Courtney [Wales] 4.03.44. Australia’s Linden Hall, who led the field fort much of the race but was run down in the final straight, finished a credible 4th in 4.03.67, while Georgia Griffith enhanced her reputation with a 5th place and personal best time of 4.04.17. Our third runner, Zoe Buckman finished in 12th place in 4.06.76. There were 14 starters in the final.
A wonderful night of athletics!!
Badminton
We had a big program of Singles and Doubles matches played today, and the results in which Australia was involved are detailed hereunder.
Men’s Singles Round of 64: Anthony Joe [Australia] defeated Daniel Sam [Ghana] 2-0;
Women’s Singles Round of 64: Hsuan-Yu Wendy Chen [Australia] defeated Eyram Migbodzi [Ghana] 2-0;
Men’s Doubles, Round of 32: Australia defeated Pakistan 2-0 [21-12, 21-17], and England defeated Australia 2-0 [21-10,21-18].
Basketball
There were four qualifying matches today, Australian teams had the day off.
Men qualifying Final: Canada defeated England 97-79; Scotland defeated Nigeria 66-61;
Women’s qualifying Final: New Zealand defeated Mozambique 79-63; England defeated Jamaica 62-40.
Beach Volleyball
Today, we saw the quarter-final matches being played in this competition, and results were as follows.
Men’s Quarter-finals: Canada defeated Cyprus 2-0; England defeated Scotland 2-0; New Zealand defeated Trinidad & Tobago 2-0; Australia defeated Sierra Leone 2-0 [21-12, 21-14]
Women’s Quarter-finals: Vanuatu defeated England 2-1; Australia defeated Rwanda 2-0 [21-9,21-8]; Cyprus defeated New Zealand 2-0; Canada defeated Scotland 2-0.
Boxing
We had five Australians featuring in Boxing Quarter-final bouts today, of whom two made it through to the medal stages.
Men’s +91 kg Quarter-final 3: Frazer Clarke [England defeated Toese Vou Stutu [Australia] 5-0;
Men’s 69 kg Quarter-final 3: Manoj Kumar [India] defeated Terry Nickolas [Australia] 4-1;
Men’s 91 kg Quarter-final 2: Jason Whateley [Australia] defeated Damien Sullivan [Northern Ireland] 4-1;
Men’s 64 kg Quarter-final 4: Luke McCormack [England] defeated Liam Wilson [Australia] 5-0;
And finally, my highlight of the boxing day,
Women’s 57 kg Quarter-final 3: Skye Nicholson [Australia] defeated Christelle Aurore Ndiang [Cameroon] 5-0 – Skye is the youingersister of former Australian Olympic and Commonwealth Games boxer, Jamie Nicholson, who along with his brother, was killed in a car accident in 1994, the year before Skye was born. His career and her family’s long-time involvement in the sport were the inspiration for her to take it up.
Cycling, Road events
Today, the Men’s and Women’s Time Trials were held, and as with day One of the competition, it was a duel success for our Australian cyclists. My highlight was Cameron Myer’s success in the Men’s event – he has been a wonderful competitor for many years now, and competes in a variety of events throughout the world, including this week’s track events. From Reece Homfray [Herald Sun] “After missing the medals in the Points race on Sunday night, Meyer refocused and stormed to gold on the road at Currumbin…[he] crushed the field that had started before him on the 38.5 km course……..It was Meyer’s fourth Commonwealth Games Gold Medal after he won three on the track in Delhi in 2010”.. And we should not overlook the courageous ride by Australia’s Katrin Garfoot in the Women’s event. Full results were as follows.
Men’s Individual Time Trial.
GOLD: Cameron Myer [Australia] 48.13.04; Silver: Harry Tanfield [England] 48.43.30; Bronze: Hamish Bond [New Zealand] 48.45.45. Australia’s Callum Scotson finished 4th in 49.35.65. There were 54 starters, of whom only one rider failed to complete the course.
Women’s Individual Time Trial;
GOLD: Gatrin Garfoot [Australia] 35.08.09; Silver: Linda Villumsen [New Zealand] 36.03.01; Bronze: Hayley Simmonds [England] 36.22.09. Katrin was the only Australian amongst the 19 competitors in this race, held over the shorter distance to the Men’s event.
Hockey
Men Pool A: Australia defeated Canada 4-0; New Zealand defeated Scotland 5-2;
Men: Pool B: India defeated Malaysia 2-1; England defeated Wales 3-2;
Women Pool A: India defeated South Africa 1-0;
Women Pool B: Australia defeated Scotland 2-0
Lawn Bowls
It was another huge day on the bowling greens with a multitude of matches in progress. Australian results were as follows.
Women’s Pairs, Round 2: Australia defeated Niue 35-11
Men’s Singles Round 3: Aaron Wilson [Australia] defeated Phillip Jones [Norfolk Island] 21-18;
Women’s Pairs, Round 3: Australia defeated Malta 18-14;
Men’s Singles Round 4: Aaron Wilson [Australia] defeated Petrus Breitenbarh [South Africa] 21-6;
Mixed B2/B3 [Para] Pairs Semi-final: Australia defeatd Scotland 14-8;
Women’s Triples Round 3: Australia defeated India 20-11; Round 4: Australia defeated Canada 20-13;
Men’s Singles Round 5: Aaron Wilson [Australia] defeated Daniel Salmon [Wales] 21-16
Netball
No Australian teams played today. Match results were:
Women Pool A: Northern Ireland defeated Barbados 49-39; South Africa defeated Fiji 92-28;
Women Pool B: Uganda defeated Wales 76-40; Malawi defeated Scotland 51-50 – the giant killers continue on their way after a rare win over New Zealand a couple of days ago, although Scotland had two opportunities in the closing seconds from fouls to equal the score, and a last gasp throw for goal, each chance missed to give Malawi the narrow win.
Para Powerlifting
The Para Power Lifting competition took place today, and as anticipated, the four medal events were dominated by the Nigerians.
Men’s Lightweight Final: GOLD: Roland Ezuruike [Nigeria]; Silver: Paul Kehinde [Nigeria]; Bronze: Ali Jawad [England];
Women’s Lightweight Final: GOLD: Esther Oyema [Nigeria] ;Lucy Ejike [Nigeria]; Bronze: Zoe Newson [England]
Women’s Heavyweight Final: GOLD: Ndidi Nwosu [Nigeria]; Silver: Louise Sugde3n [England]. No Bronze awarded.
Men’s Heavyweight Final: GOLD: Abdulazeez Ibrahim [Nigrria]; Silver:: Yee Khia Jong [Malaysia]; Bronze: Sachin Chaudhary [India]
Shooting
Another Silver medal success for the Australian shooting team today, amongst the three finals decided.
Queen’s Prize: Pairs Finals [Day 2]: GOLD: England [581-61V]; Silver: Wales [582-58V]; Bronze: Scotland [582-49V]. The Australian Pair of Jim Bailey & Ben Emms finished [580.54V]
Men’s 50 metre Rifle Prone Final: GOLD: David Phelps [Wales] 248.8; Silver: Neil Stirton [Scotland] 247.7; Bronze: Kenneth Parr [England] 226.6. Australia’s James Daly finished 6th, with 161.2.
Women’s 25 metre Pistol Final: GOLD: Heena Sidhu [India] 38, GR; Silver: Elena Galiabovittch [Australia] 35; Bronze: Alia Sazana Azahari [Malaysia] 26. Australia’s Lalita Yauhleuskaya finished in 8th position [7]
Squash
Round matches in doubles competitions predominated throughout today’s competition.
Men’s Doubles, Pool E: Australia defeated Cayman Islands 2-0;
Men’s Doubles, Pool A: Australia defeated Fiji 2-0; Pool F: Australia defeated Malaysia 2-0;
Women’s Doubles, Pool D: Australia defeated Cayman Islands 2-0; Australia defeated Canada 2-1;
Mixed Doubles, Pool D: Australia defeated Guyana 2-0;
Table Tennis
Another day of Singles early round matches in the Table Tennis competition. A look at the Australian results, few among many.
Women’s TT5-10[Para] Singles, Group 2: Faith Obazuaye [Nigeria] defeated Andrea McDonnell [Australia] 3-0;
Men’s TT6-10 [Para] Singles Group 2: Ross Wilson [England] defeated Barak Mizrachi [Australia] 3-0;
Women’s TT6-10 [Para] Singles, Group 1: Melissa Tapper [Australia] defeated Maitreyee Sarkar [India] 3-0;
The 21st Commonwealth Games – Gold Coast , Part 5: 11-12 April
Day 7 of competition, Wednesday, 11th April
Things are moving along quickly at the Gold Coast [although I guess anyone not interested in sport, or the Games specially, might not agree J – so be it!!]. However we did have another day of world-class competition, which includes the start of the Rhythmic Gymnastics [not exactly my preferred choice of viewing, but seems to be popular with TV audiences], while the Diving competition started today with three Gold Medals to be contested including the women’s Synchronised 3 metre Springboard and Synchronised 10m Platform, plus the men’s 1m Springboard. In the 10m event, Melbourne 2006 medallists, Australia’s Melissa Wu and Canada’s Meaghan Benefeito, return to the platform to dive for another Games medal.
Beach Volleyball enters the semi-final stage, the Boxing action continued and Hockey and Netball teams played their final preliminary round matches. Meanwhile, the Carrara Stadium [normally the home of the Gold Coast AFL football team] hosted a blockbuster evening of medal action, with Finals including the men’s high jump, long jump, and F38 shot put, as well as the women’s T35 100m, together with the regular 400m, 3000m steeplechase and javelin throw Meanwhile, with rivalries, upsets and close matches galore, Hockey has been a highlight of the Games and today, it was the teams’ last chances to qualify for the classification and semi-final matches.
And today, we see the Semi-Final matches in Beach Volleyball.
I’m going to begin today’s report, by looking at the Shooting competition. Whilst waiting for a tradie to turn up this morning, I had the opportunity to watch a complete event, without any breaks in the telecast [a rare event, which prompted the following brief comment on my Face Book status.
“Not the mass excitement of some more popular events,but great to watch a Gold winning shooter. Daniel Repacholi. In a full uninterrupted coverage of the event , no adverts, on channel 72, wouldn’t have happened on the main 7 channel, would have had at least 3 ad breaks at a minimum. My constant frustration with that mob and why I watch very little on the 7 network!! Great coverage, and learning curve of a very interesting shooting event!!”
So that’s where we start.
Shooting
We had three Medal events decided today, and the one that gave the writer the most pleasure was Daniel Repacholi’s event, the 2nd on th day’s program. He had previously won two Gold Medals – at Melbourne in 2006, and in Glasgow in 2014, and had indicated he would retire from competition after these Games. His event, the Men’s 50m Pistol. Daniel began slowly, 3rd after the first 5 shots, dropped to 5th, after 10 shots, and then as the elimination process began, his shooting improved considerably as he wavered between 1st and 2nd position, until by the stage that the three medallists had been determined, barring a disaster, it was clear our man would win
Men’s 50m Pistol Final:
GOLD: Daniel Repocholi [Australia] 227.2; Silver: Shakil Ahmed [Bangladesh] 220.5; Bronze: Om Mitharval [India] 201.10. Australia’s Bruce Quick finished 11th at the Qualification stage.
Women’s Double Trap Finals – more success for Australia, with a Silver medal
GOLD: Shreyasi Singh [India] 96+2; Silver: Emma Cox [Australia] 96+1; Bronze: Linda Pearson [Scotland] 87. Australia’s Gaye Shale finished in 7th position with a score of 80.
Men’s Double Trap Finals – Australia’s James Willett competing in this competition.
GOLD: David McMath [Scotland] 74; Silver: Tim Kneale [Isle of Man] 70; Bronze: Ankur Mittal [India] 53.Australia’s Tim Willtt finished 6th with a score of 23.
Queen’s Prize: Individual, Day 1:
After Day 1 [of 2] in this event, Australia’s Jim Bailey leads the field of 33 competitors, with Ben Emms of Australia sitting in 5th position,
Athletics
Just the evening session of athletics today, and a smorgasbord of events, and a nice collection of medals for Australia, something the athletics team doesn’t often experience – tonight, four Gold, three Silver and on Bronze, no cause for complaint [almost at the swimming level], just a pity the coverage had to be on the main Seven network, constant interruptions [as always] test my blood pressure levels!!
Women’s Long Jump, Qualifying [WR: 7.52]
We had the three girls in these qualifying groups, and they would all succeed in progressing to the final. The best qualifying jump of the night went to England’s Shara Proctor [6.89]. The three Australians finished in the following order. Brooke Stratton, 3rd [6.73], Lauren Wells 6th [3.46], and Naa Anang, 7th [6.46]. The final will be Thursday night.
Women’s Javelin Throw Final [WR: 72.28]
A wonderful outcome for Australia’s Kathryn Mitchell, in hr 4th attempt at a Commonwealth Games medal – her last three tries saw her reach 6th, 5th and 4th, persistence over the years, in an event that Australia have won 9 of the 19 holdings of the Javelin throw. Australia had two competitors in the final, and they gained two of the medals.
GOLD: Kathryn Mitchell [Australia] 68.92 [a Games record, the longest ever javelin throw in Australia, which she managed in her first attempt]. Silver: Kelsey-Lee Roberts [Australia] 63.89; Bronze: Sunette Viljoen [South Africa] 62.08.
Women’s 3,000 Metres Steeplechase Final [WR: 8.52.78]
This event included two Australians, and three Kenyans in the starting list of 10 runners – Genevieve Lacaze [who was in with an outside chance of a medal], and Victoria Mitchell [only a short time out of medical and injury concerns]. Surprisingly, the Kenyans were outrun in the end, with the Jamaican competitor coming over the top of them in the closing stages, seemingly with little effort.
GOLD: Aisha Praught [Jamaica] 9.21.00; Silver: Celliphine Chepteek Chespol [Kenya] 9.22.61; Bronze: Purity Cherotich Kirui [Kenya] 9.25.74. Genevieve Legaze finished 5th in 9.42.69, and Victoria Mitchell was 9th in 10.12.59 [a game effort by the latter under the circumstances of her lad up to the Games].
Men’s High Jump Final [WR: 2.45]
This event for Australia could be described as the highlight of the night, as it was perhaps the least expected to achieve the ultimate success. We had just the one competitor – Brandon Starc, who is in fact the brother of present day Australian Test Cricketer, Mitchell Starc. His performance tonight should go a way to reversing the ‘star’ status of the two brothers. He finished 8th in the Glasgow Games [2014] and 15th in the Rio Olympic Games. He put those results behind him tonight.
GOLD: Brandon Starc [Australia] 2.32; Silver: Jamal Wilson [Bahamas] 2.30; Bronze: Django Lovett [Canada] 2.30. Australia’s Joel Baden finished in 8th place in the Group B qualifying stage of the event [2.15]
Women’s 200 Metres Semi-finals [WR: 21.34]
We had three semi-finals tonight, with three young Aussie girls running for glory. The first two place getters in each race plus the next two fastest times would progress to the final. The fastest time of the three semi-finals was run by Shericka Jackson [Jamaica] in 22.28 in Semi-final 1. That event saw Australia’s Maddie Coates finish in 4th position in 23.43. The 2nd Semi-final featured Australia’s [not yet 18 years old] Riley Day, who ran a promising race, finishing 4th in 23.24 secs [0.01 secs behind the 3rd placegetter – in Day’s words later “One hundredth of a second…it’s a frickin’ kicker…a punch in the guts’ as she missed out on the final by a whisker, after drawing the strongest semi-final]. The winning time in that race was 22.48, and in the 3rd semi-final the best time was 22.87, which also featured Australia’s Larissa Pasternatsky, who finished 5th in 23.64. With only the top 8 going into the final, our girls all missed out – Riley Day in 0th position, 0.01 of a second outside of the 8th position, Maddie Coates in 12th position, and Larissa Pasternatsky, in 16th position overall.
Men’s Long Jump Final [WR: 8.95]
The final field of 12 starters included the three Australians. In his qualifying jump earlier in the week, Henry Frayne broke the existing Games Record, so came into this event with good prospects. He was however, up against the existing World Champion, but late in the competition, Frayne had taken the lead with a jump of 2.33. However, the South African champion exceeded that with an 8.35, and then a final Gold winning jump of 8.41 which Frayne was unable to reach. This was the longest ever jump in Commonwealth Games competition.
GOLD: Luvo Manyonga [South Africa] 8.41 [new GR]; Silver: Henry Frayne [Australia]8.33; Bronze: Ruswahl Samaai [South Africa] 8.22. Australia’s Chris Mitrevski finished in 6th position [7.90], and Fabrice Lapierre was 12th [7.56].
Men’s F38 [Para] Shot Put Final
We saw another Quinella is this event, with the three Australians finishing in the first four places
GOLD: Cameron Crombie [Australia] 15.74; Silver: Marty Jackson [Australia] 13.74; Bronze: Reinhardt Hamman [South Africa] 13.15. Australia’s Jordan Sawyer finished 4th on 12.40.
Men’s 200 Metres Semi-finals [WR: 19.19]
The fastest time in the three semi-finals was gained by Aaron Brown [Canada] in 20.18. Australia’s Alex Hartman, finished 3rd in the 2nd semi-final in a time of 20.76. Unfortunately, his time was 12th in the overall result, and he did not qualify for tomorrow’s final.
Women’s T35 [Para] 100 Metres Final
This race saw two more medals to the Australian team including the current World Champion and record holder, Isis Holt [described as the ‘bolt’] just 16 years old – and she did indeed ‘bolt’ away from the rest of the field to win by over a second.
GOLD: Isis Bolt [Australia] 13.58; Silver: Maria Lyle [Scotland] 15.14; Bronze: Brianna Coop [Australia] 15.63. In 4th place was Australia’s Carly Salmon, in 16.39.
Women’s 400 Metres Final [WR: 47.60]
The final vent of the evening, included Australia’s Anneliese Rubie, who had performed well in winning her heat, followed by a third placing in her semi-final. However, despite a brave effort tonight, she was outclassed in the final.
GOLD: Amantle Montsho [Botswana] 50.15; Silver: Anastasia Le-Roy [Jamaica] 50.57; Bronze: Stephenie McPherson [Jamaica] 50.93. Anneliese finished in 7th position in 52.03.
Badminton
Australian results in the Round of 32 matches today were:
Men’s Singles: Joe Anthony [Australia] defeated Muhammad Irfan Saeed Bhatti [Pakistan] 2-0 [22-20, 21-18];
Women’s Doubles: Singapore defeated Australia 25-1 [22-20, 16-21, 21-18]
Women’s Singles: HsuanYu Wendy Chen [Australia] defeated Zoe Morris [Falkland Islands] 2-0 [21-3,21-2]
Mixed Doubles: Australia defeated Jamaica 2-0 [ 21-17,21-4 ] [Sawan Serasinghe & Styana Mapasa];
Beach Volleyball
Men’s Semi-finals: Australia defeated England 2-0 [21-12, 21-16]; Canada defeated New Zealand 2-0;.
Women’s Semi-finals: Canada defeated Cyprus 2-0; Australia defeated Vanuatu 2-1 [ 21-19, 16-21, 15-9] [Artachodel Solar & Clancy]. Our women volleyballers survived a major scare in this last match, with the expected underdogs taking the Australians for a third set for the first time in these Games. Despite that, the Australians felt good about their upcoming Gold Medal match against Canada – ‘We know our best can beat anyone, Cabada are a very experienced team, we’re a new team, and we want to get to where they are….Australia loves an underdog”.
Boxing
The boxing competition is getting close to the pointy end of the various categories. We had four Australians fighting today for three winners, all of whom will earn a medal of some colour.
Women’s 60 kg Quarter-Final 1: Anja Stridesman [Australia] defeated Sarita Devi [India] 5-0;
Women’s 69 kg Semi-Final: Rose Eccles [Wales] defeated Kaye Scott [Australia] 4-1;
Men’s 60kg Quarter-Final 3: Harry Garside [Australia] defeated Nathaniel Collins [Scotland] 5-0;
Men’s 81 kg Quarter-Final 2: Clay Waterman [Australia] defeated Mbachi Kaonga [Zambia] 4-1. This win by Waterman prompted, according to reports, a ‘meltdown’ by his beaten opponent, who launched a verbal attack against the judges of hometown bias, convinced he had won the fight. From memory this kind of accusation is not uncommon in international boxing tournaments. Waterman’s reaction – ‘I don’t know how you can call it bulls…when he pretty much ran away the whole fight”.
Diving Competition
The first day of Diving competition produced some exciting results for our Australian divers.
Women’s Synchronised 3m Springboard Final
GOLD: Australia [Esther Qin & Georgia Sheehan] 284.10; Silver: England 276.9; Bronze: Malaysia 264.9. The Australian pair of Maddison Keeney & Anabelle Smith finished 7th [224.31]. Sheehan and Esther were regarded as the country’s second team, , but hit the lead with their final dive after fellow Australians Keeney and Smith registered a ‘no dive’ when Keeney lost her bearings during a twisting move and landed on her back.
Men’s 1m Springboard Final
Three Australians qualified through to the Final of 12 starters – Matthew Carter [5th], James Connor [6th] and Kurtis Mathews [12th]
GOLD: Jack Laugher [England] 438 pts; Silver: James Connor [Australia] 412.45 pts; Bronze: James Heatly [Scotland] 399.25 pts. Australia’s Matthew Carter, finished 8th [36.30 pts], and Kurtis Mathews, was 9th with 367.60 pts.
Women’s Synchronised 10m Platform Final
We had two Australian pairs in the final, but they were unable to get into the medals.
GOLD: Malaysia [328.08]; Silver: Canada [312.12]; Bronze: Malaysia [308.16]. The Australian duo of Teju Williamson and Melissa Wu finished in 4th position, with 307.80 pts, and Annarose Keating & Brittany O’Brien, finished 6th with 273.15 pts. Williamson had been called into the team at the last minute, after the shock retirement, due to a medical warning, of Wu’s partner, Taneka Kovchenko
Hockey
Men: Pool A: Australia defeated New Zealand 2-14; South Africa defeated Canada 2-0;;
Men: Pool B: Malaysia drew with Pakistan 1-1; India defeated England 4-3;
Women: Pool A: Malaysia defeated Wales 1-0;
Women: Pool B: Canada defeated Ghana 5-1;
Lawn Bowls
The highlight of today’s extensive bowls competition, was a Gold Medal to the Para Mixed B2/B3 team
Mixed B2/B3 [Para] Pairs
GOLD Medal: Australia defeated South Africa 12-9 [Australia: Lynne Seymour, Bob Seymour, Jake Fehlberg, & Grant Fehlberg]; Bronze Medal: Wales defeated Scotland 13-12;
Women’s Pairs, Round 4: Australia defeated PNG 29-7; Round 5: Australia defeated England:20-14;
Open B6/B7/B8/ [Para] Triples Semi-Final: Australia defeated South Africa 15-7;
Women’s Triples, Round 5: Australia defeated Fiji 24-9; Quarter-Final: Australia defeated Northern Island 30-5;
Men’s Fours, Round 3: India defeated Australia 19-15;
Men’s Fours, Round 4: Australia defeated Norfolk Island 24-10;
Netball
Today’s games.
Women Pool A: Australia defeated Jamaica 72-51; South Africa defeated Barbados 85-25; Northern Ireland defeated Fiji 73-46;
Women Pool B: England defeated New Zealand 54-45; Uganda defeated Scotland 57-37; Malawi defeated Wales 68-53;
Rhythmic Gymnastics
Tam Final and Individual Qualification Subdicision 2, Rotation 4
The Australian girls in Subdivision 2 were – Enid Sung, Danielle Prince [Australia’s first female gymnast to compete in three Commonwealth Games], and Alexandra Kiroi-Bogatyreva [16 year-old Melbourne schoolgirl]. They combined to gain a Bronze Medal.
GOLD: Cyprus [130.625]; Silver: Malaysia [127.95]; Bronze: Australia [120.80].
Our girl’s individual overall scores were: Enid Sung 7th [47.450], Alexandra Kiroi-Bogatyreva 8th [47.450] and Danielle Prince 10th [47.200]
Squash
Women’s Doubles Pool A: New Zealand defeated Australia 2-0 [11-8, 11-6] [Sarah Cardwell & Christine Nunn]; Malaysia defeated Australia [Sarah Cardwell & Christine Nunn] 2-1 [10-11, 11-6, 11-5];
Men’s Doubles, Pool E: Australia defeated Jamaica 2-0 [11-7, 11-5] [Zac Alexander & David Palmer];
Mixed Doubles, Pool D: Australia defeated Pakistan 2-0 [ 11-3, 1-6] [Donna Urquhart & Cameron Pilley]
Mixed Doubles, Pool F: Australia [Rachel Grinham & Tyan Cuskelly] defeated Trinidad & Tobago 2-0 [11-0, 11-4];
Women’s Doubles, Pool D: Australia [Donna Urquhart & Rachel Grinham] defeated Guyana 2-0 [11-2,11-2];
Men’s Doubles, Pool A: Australia [Ryan Cuskelly & Cameron Pilley] defeated Trinidasd & Tobago 2-0 [11-0, 11-2];
Table Tennis
Australian results in today’s Table Tennis competition were as follows.
Mixed Doubles, Round of 64: Australia [David Powell & Miao Miao] defeated Uganda 2-0 [11-6,11-4,11-6];
Women’s TT6-10 [Para] Singles Group 1: Melissa Tapper [Australia] defeated Felicity Pickard [England] 3-0 [11-6,11-2,11-1];
Men’s TT6-10[Para] Group 2: Barak Mizrachi [Australia defeatedTemitope Ogunsanya [Nigeria] 3-0[11-9,11-4,11-4];
Men’s Doubles, Round of 32: Singapore defeated Australia [David Powell & Kane Townshend] 3-0 [11-3,11-8,11-7] Australia [Hu Heming & Yan Xin] defeated Barbados 3-0 [11-6,11-6,11-6];
Mixed Doubles Round of 32: Australia [Yan Xin & Jian Fang Lay] defeated Ghana 3-0 [11-2,11-1,11-3]; Australia [Hu Heming & Melissa Tapper] defeated Vanuatu 3-0 [11-5,11-9,11-9]; Australia [Trent Carter & Tracey Feng] defeated Guyana 3-0 [11-4,11-8,11-9];
Women’s Singles, Round of 32: Melissa Tapper [Australia] defeated Karen Lyne [Malaysia] 4-1 [13-11, 11-8, 7-11, 11-7, 11-8]; Tracey Feng [Australia] defeated Chloe Thomas [Wales] 4-0 [11-6,11-6,11-9,11-5]; Jing Fang Lay [Australia] defeated Priscilla Tommy [Vanuatu] 4-0 [11-4, 12-10, 11-3, 12-10];
Men’s Singles, Round of 32: Muhamad Rizal [Malaysia] defeated David Powell [Australia] 4-1 [11-9,9-11,11-6,11-9,11-5]; Heming Hu [Australia] defeated Bernard Sam [Ghana] 4-0 [11-2,11-8,11-6,11-4]; Chee Feng Leong [Malaysia] defeated Xin Yan [Australia] 4-1 [11-2,11-5,13-11,9-11,11-8];
Day 8 of competition, Thursday, 12th April
We have a couple of new events commencing today – the Mountain Bikers take to the Nerang Mountain Bike Trails, Wrestling began [that competition began with 6 weight classes to be contested as the Commonwealth’s best face off across a 12m by 12m mat. Today, the men’s 57kg and 74kg champions were crowned, as well as the women’s 53kg and 75kg categories]. Meanwhile, history was made when Beach Volleyball Commonwealth Games champions were determined for the first time. In Badminton it was non-stop action at Carrara Sports and Leisure Centre, with the final day of preliminary rounds in the men’s and women’s singles and men’s, women’s and mixed doubles competition before the quarterfinals starting on Friday.
And we had another wonderful at the athletics track and field competition. We will begin today’s summary with a look at the athletics program.
Athletics
Men’s Discus Throw, Qualifying, Groups A and B
Group A qualifying has 7 starters, including Australia’s Ben Harradine, who finished the group in 2nd position with a throw of 61.64, behind Fedrick Dacres of Jamaica [66.20]
Group B included Matty Denny and Mitchell Cooper.
Women’s Heptathlon Competition
The competition, to be run over two days, began with 13 starters, a small field, which included two Australians – Alysha Burnett, and Celeste Mucci. The wimn compete over six events – On Day One, 100metre Hurdles, High Jump, 200 metres, and on Day Two, the Long Jump, Jsavelin, and 800 metres. Today’s events tevealed the following progressive outcome.
Heptathlon 100 Metres Hurdles, Heats 1 and 2
Heat 1 was won by Elizabeth Dadzie [Ghana] in 13.49 [1052 pts]. Australia’s Alysha Burnett finished 3rd in 14.32 [934 pts]. Heat 2 went to Australia’s Celeste Mucci in the time of 13.19, earning her 1096 pts.
Following the hurdles event, the leadr is Australia’s Celeste Mucci with 1096 pts, while Alysha is in 9th position on 934 pts, five more events to be completed
Heptathlon High Jump
In this competition, the two Australian competitors finished in 2nd and 6th position. The leading jump was shared by Katarina Johnson-Thompson [England] with 1.87 [1067 pts], and Australia’s Alysha Burnett with th same height and points. Celeste Mucci finished in 6th position, 1.75 [916 pts].
At this stage, the progressive leading scores are 1. Katarina Johnson-Thompson [England] 2111 pts; 2.. Nina Schultz [Canada], 2084 pts; 3. Celeste Mucci [Australia], 2012 pts, and 4. Alysha Burnett [Australia], with 2001 pts.
Heptathlon Shot Put
In this third event of the Heptathlon, the two Australian girls finished in 2nd and third place, and collected valuable points in the overall competition. Best throw came from Canada’s Niki Oudenaarden with 13.85. Australia’s Alysha Burnett threw 13.62 [769] and Celeste Mucci 12.22 [676 pts]. This event catapulted Alysha Burnett into the competition lead, at least temporarily, with a total score of 2870 points, ahead of Nina Schultz [2754 pts] and Katarina Johnson-Thompson [2742 pts]
Heptathlon 200 metres, Heats1 and 2
That situation changed with the 200 metres heats.
In Heat 1, the winner was Niamh Emersen [England] in 24.83, while Alysha Burnett [not her strong event] came in 4th, in 26.76 [732 pts]. Nina Schultz earned 885 pts for her 25.02 time.
In Heat 2, Katerina Johnson-Thompson won in 23.56 [1023 pts], and Celeste Mucci finished a strong 2nd in 24.59 [925 pts].
In summary, after Day 1’s four events, the leader is England’s Katarina Johnson-Thompson [3675 pts], followed by Nina Schultz [Canada] [3639 pts] and in the Bronze medal position at present, Celeste Mucci [3613 pts]. Alysha Burnett is now in 5th place on 3502 pts. The Heptathlon concludes tomorrow.
Men’s Triple Jump Qualifying, Groups A and B [WR: 18.29]
There was one Australian representative in this event – Emmanuel Fakiye, who jumped in Group A, finishing back in 8th position with a distance of 15.70.The leading jump in that group was 16.75 by Yordanys Duranona Garcia [Dominica]. The Group B lading jump was completed by Arpinder Singh of India with 16.39. The Australian finished 15th overall, and did not qualify for Saturday’s final.
Women’s 100 Metres Hurdles, Heats 1 and 2 [WR: 12.20]
This has been Sally Pearson’s race, who was forced to withdraw on this occasion due to injury. There were two enthusiastic Australian girls to step up for her – Brianna Beahan and Michelle Jenneke.
Brianna ran in Heat 1, and finished in 2nd place in a time of 13.02 behind the winner, Oluwatobiloba Amusan [Nigeria] in 12.73. In Heat 2, the winner was Danielle Williams of Jamaica in a time of 12.69, and Michelle Jenneke finished a close 4th by a whisker in 12.99.
In the overall classification, both Australian girls qualified for Friday’s final – Michelle [5th] and Brianna [6th].
Men’s T12 [Para] 100 Metres Heats 1 and 2, and Final
There were only 8 athletes competing for these medals, and surprisingly, no Australians. The best time recorded was Ndodomzi Ntutu [South Africa] in 10.80 , with the final to be run in the evening. That result was:
GOLD: Ndodomzi Ntutu [South Africa] 11.02; Silver: Hilton Langenhoven [South Africa] 11.27: Bronze: Muhamad Afiq Mohamad Ali Hanafiah [Malaysia] 11.28.
Women’s Shot Put Qualifying Groups A and B
I was disappointed to discover that we had no Australian women entered in this event for 2018. This morning, it was conducted in two groups of seven competitors, with the 12 best throws to qualify for the final on Friday.
Leading throwers were: Group A: Brittany Crew [Canada] 17.50, and Group B, Dame Valerie Adams [New Zealand] 18.52.
Women’s 800 Metres, Heats 1-3 [1.53.28]
This event was raced over 3 heats, leading up the Final on Friday.
In Heat 1, the South African champion, Caster Semenya had an early run in the early stages, and won in effortless fashion, in a time of 1.59.26. She has not been beaten in this event since September, 2015. Australia’s 16 year-old Keely Small got out to a fast start, and in finishing in 6th position, she ran a personal best time of 2.00.81, a promising prospect for the future of Australian middle distance running.
Heat 2, also saw Australia’s Brittany McGovern go out fast, then get held up by the slow pace in the middle stages, before getting a fast finishing 4th place in 2.01.07, behind the heat winner, Margaret Wambui of Kenya [2.00.60], in a slower heat, with the first two in each heat automatically going through to the final.
Australia’s Georgia Griffith ran in Heat 3, and was our hope for at least a minor medal.. She was up with the leaders in the first lap, then seemed to get trapped in a tight pack of runners early in the 2nd lap, dropped back and seemed out of it, but a wonderful finish saw Georgia just mussed the 2nd placing by 0.04 of a second [her time 2.00.73, a personal best]. The winner was Emily Teui [Kenya] in 2.00.58.
In the overall classification for the final, all three Australians failed to qualify, with Georgia Griffiths, 9th [one place out by that 0.04 of a second; Keely Small, 11th; and Brittany McGovern, 13th.
The evening session of today’s athletics program included three wonderful field events with some spectacular performances by our Australian athletes [two Gold and one Silver medal] – in the Men’s Pole Vault, Women’s Long Jump, and Women’s Discus. Let’s examine them.
Men’s Pole Vault Final [6.16]
This is an event that Australia has had some success in over the years at both Olympic, World Championship and Commonwealth level [including Steve Hooker, who currently still holds the Games record of 5.80], and tonight would possibly see the emergence of a new young star to carry on that success. In the end, the competition proved to be a battle for the Gold between aa 20 year old Australian [Marschall] and a Canadaian [Barber], an exciting contest, after a slow start by both vaulters to get over the specified heights. In the end, it was a wonderful win for the young Australian.
GOLD: Kurtis Marschall [Australia] 5.70; Silver: Shawnacy Barber [Canada] 5.65; Bronze: Luke Cutts [England] 5.45. The Australian, after he had won the Gold, made three [unsuccessful] attempts at a new Games record. Australia’s Angus Armstrong also competed in the final – he finished in 5th place with a height of 5.35.
Women’s 400 Metres Hurdles Final [WR: 52.34].
No Australians in this final but there three Jamaican runners. Australia’s Jana Pitman holds the Games record for this event, which she recorded in Melbourne at the 2006 Commonwealth Games
GOLD: Janieve Russell [Jamaica] 54.33; Silver: Eilidh Doyle [Scotland] 54.80; Bronze: Wenda Nel [South Africa] 54.96. Australia’s Lauren Wells finished 4thin her heat but did not qualify for the final.
Men’s 400 Metres Hurdles Final [WR: 46.78]
A bit of history in this race, with victory going to a country which had never won a Gold Medal previously, although he went into the race as the favourite.
GOLD: Kyron McMaster [British Virgin Islands] 48.25; Silver: Jeffery Gibson [Bahamas] 49.10; Bronze: Jaheel Hyde [Jamaica] 49.16. Australia’s Ian Dewhurst had finished 3rd in his heat of this race, but didn’t make the final list.
Women’s Long Jump Final [WR:7.52]We had three Australians in this event, with Brooke Stratton in particular hoping for a good result – her obvious disappointment [though followed by a quick recovery] at missing the Gold was evidence of her early anticipation. The final result ended as follows……………GOLD: Christobel Netty [England] 6.84; Silver: Brooke Stratton [Australia] 6.77; Bronze:Shara Proctor [England] 6.75; Australia’s Naa Anang finished 9th with 6.22, and Lauren Wells cane 11th in 6.16.
Women’s T38 [Para] 100 Metres Final
Three young Australian girls in this Para event – the winner was the predictable Sophie Hahn of England, who went in as favourite for the race.
GOLD: Sophie Hahn [England] 12.46; Silver: Rhiannon Clarke [Australia – a very excited 15 year-old] 13.17; Bronze: Olivia Breen [Wales] 13.35. Australia’s Ella Pardy finished 4th in 13.48, and Erin Cleaver was 5th in 14.43.
Women’s Discus Final [WR: 76.80]
Australia’s veteran discus thrower, Dani Stevens, had a wonderful night in this event tonight, and together with her two fellow Australian competitors, they finished in the top six of the field of 13 throwers. Stevens went in as the favourite and did not disappointed the Gold Coast crowd, as each of her throws gradually added to her distance for the night – until she ended with a new Games record, destroying the existing GR of 65.92 in winning the Gold Medal………….GOLD: Dani Stevens [Australia] 68.26 [GR]; Silver: Seema Punia [India] 60.41; Bronze: Navjeet Dhillon [India]57.43. The other two Australians – Taryn Gollshewsky was 5th with 55.47, and Kimberley Mullhall, 6th, 54.93.
Women’s 200 Metres Final [WR: 21.34]
As would be expected with a field of strong Caribbean runners in this race, a hectic finish took place, with the winner gaining clear ground, only in the closing stages. Jamaica continued it’s run in these Games as not dominating results as much as in the past [the absence of Usain Bolt for eg, has not helped in that respect, though I would imagine that as a team, they will be strong in both the Men’s and Women’s relays this weekend.
GOLD: Shaunae Miller-Uibo [Bahamas]22.09 [GR]; Silver: Shericka Jackson [Jamaica] 22.18; Bronze: Dina Asher-Smith [England] 22.29. Othr positions – 4. Elaine Thompson [Jamaica] 22.30; 5. Crystal Emmanuel [Canada] 22.70; 6. Bianca Williams [England] 23.06; 7. Semoy Hackett [Trinidad & Tobago] 23.16. Shashalee Forbes [Jamaica] was disqualified.
Men’s 200 Metres Final [19.19]
Well, this race proved to be a bit of a sensation, with the Trinidad & Tobago runner [Jereem Richards], seemingly with the race in his grip, when a brilliant finishing sprint over the last 10-15 metres or so, by England’s Zharnel Hughes, pipped him on the finishing line, even though both men were initially given the same time. However, it appeared as though in the dash for the line, Hughes had moved out of his lane, and inadvertently ‘interfered’ with the line of Richards, A protest followed, while in the meantime, Hughes, presumably unaware of what was happening, proceeded with his lap of honour, which seemed to continue for some time, after it had been indicated that the protest had been upheld, and he had been disqualified
There would be a subsequent appeal by Hughes, but in the meantime, the result stood as follows.
GOLD: Jereem Richards [Trinidad & Tobago] 20.12; Silver: Aaroon Brown [Canada] 20.34; Bronze: Leon Reid [Northern Ireland] 20.55; 4. Clarence Munyai [South Africa] 20.58; 5. Sydney Ziame [Zambia] 20.62; 6. Kyle Greaux [Trinidad & Tobago] 20.63; 7. Warrn Weir [Jamaica] 20.71; Zharnel Hughes [England], disqualified.
The following subsequent report summarises this incident.
“The Commonwealth Games men’s 200m final ended in controversy with England’s Zharnel Hughes stripped of his gold medal for impeding runner-up Jereem Richards. The English camp lodged an appeal against the disqualification, which saw the Trinidad and Tobago runner promoted to the gold medal position, but it was rejected late on Thursday night. Both men clocked 20.12 seconds but Hughes was originally declared the winner in a photo finish. However, officials disqualified the Englishman soon after, ruling he impeded Richards in the home straight as the pair made contact in the sprint for the line.
It appeared Hughes deliberately flung his arm into Richards after the pair made accidental contact as a result of the frontrunner staying on the inside of his lane. The crazy finish only happened after Hughes slowed considerably in the final metres with some commentators declaring he appeared to think he was safely home. Replays showed Hughes clearly crossed into Richard’s lane, forcing his rival to change his line. There was also arm contact between the two as Richards made a desperate late lunge 10m before the line. “I was coming up on him strongly and the hit threw me off my rhythm,” Richards said. “I had to slow down.”
Channel 7’s Bruce McAvaney was stunned by the incident. “It’s unbelievably close, it is just crazy what happened in the last 10 meters,” McAvaney said. “Not sure exactly how it played out, how does it finish? Wow, what a race.
“It was almost like they were going to fall over. “I would be fascinated to see the front angle and I can only conclude they just collided. Actually when he crossed the line, Hughes grabbed his hand.”
English athletics champion Lord Sebastian Coe said it was obvious there would be a protest to Hughes’ run after watching the front-on angle. There was no need for a protest with officials taking the decision to disqualify Hughes several minutes after the event finished. He had no idea, blindsides as he did a lap of honour with the English flag draped across his back.
“Hughes didn’t know and that is remarkable,” McAvaney said. “On the board, he has done a lap of honour and now there is disbelief for the young man. I am sure England will do everything they can do to get him reinstated.”” [from news.com.ai]
Men’s 800 Metres Final [WR: 1.40.91]
The final track event for the night – and for the first time since the Brisbane Commonwealth Games of 1982, Australia had two runners in the 800 metres final, Luke Mathews and Joseph Deng. Mathews began well, and maintained a good position amongst the leaders in the first lap, before gradually falling back towards the rear of the field, where Deng had remained for most of the race to that stage. From an Australian point of view, a dramatic change came over the race in the final 15-20 metres, with Mathews coming from 3rd last, to streak into the Bronze medal position. A very excited young man, who may have risked a penalty, when he took his shirt [soccer style] off as he began to celebrate with supporters at the side of the track, which h quickly replaced, upon the advice of one of supporters!! A nice finish to the night on the track for the Australian crowd.
GOLD: Wyecliffe Kinyamal [Kenya] 1.45.11; Silver: Kyle Langford [England] 1.45.16; Bronze: Luke Mathews [Australia] 1.45.60. Australia’s 2nd runner, Joseph Deng finished in 7th position in 1.47.20.
Badminton
Today’s results which featured Australians as follows.
Women’s Doubles, Round of 16: Setyana Mapasa & Gronya Somerville [Australia] defeated Fiji 2-0 [21-3,21-6]
Men’s Singles, Round of 16: H.S. Prannoy [India] defeated Anthony Joe [Australia] 2-0 [21-18,21-11]
Women’s Singles, Round of 16: Venkata Pusarla [[India] defeated Hsuan-Yu Wendy Chen [Aust] 2-0 [21-15,21-9];
Mixed Doubles, Round of 16: Australia [Sawan Serainghe & Setyana Mapasa] defeated Canada 2-0 [21-14,21-18];
Men’s Doubles, Round of 16: Singapore defeated Australia [Matthew Chau & Sawan Serainghe] 2-1 [23-21, 16-21, 21-14];
Beach Volleyball
The matches for the Gold/Silver, and Bronze medals took place this evening, with Australia playing Canada in both of the Gold Medal matches. I think the Women’s team were expected to win,. While the Men faced the much higher ranked and experienced opposition. The outcomes were not quite along those lines, with both matches proving to very tight matches, with the outcome uncertain until the final points
For Gold/Silver Medals: Men: Australia [McHugh/Schumann] defeated Canada 2-1 [21-18, 18-21, 18-16]; Women: Canada defeated Australia [Artacho del Solar/Clancy] 2-0 [21-19,22-20]
For Bronze Medal: Men: New Zealand defeated England 2-0 [21-13; 21-15]; Women: Vanuatu defeated Cyprus 2-0 [21-14, 21-10].
Cycling – Mountain Bikes
In the Mountain Bike races, after a mass start, competitors complete a specified number of laps of the course, which involves a variety of terrains from fire roads to forest tracks, rocky sections and single tracks, with plenty of climbing and descending. Obviously, the gold medal is awarded to the first rider to cross the finish line.
Women’s Cross Country
As with the Men’s event, this was held at the Nerang Mountain Bik Trails venue – 13 starters including Rebecca McConnell of Australia started out on the 6 lap course. Rebecca, formerly Rebecca Henderson, and now married to Men’s mountain bike competition, Daniel McConnell, got off to a difficult start where she lost considerable ground in the stages, and despite improving her position as the race went on, was never in the running for the medals. This race has been one by the Canadian girls over the last three Games, however, the English riders had some revenge on this occasion. There were 13 starters in the race.
GOLD: Annie Last [England] came ‘first’ in 1.18.02; Silver: Evie Richards [England] 1.18.50; Bronze: Haley Smith [Canada] 1.20.26. Australia’s Rebecca McConnell finished in 6th position in 1.22.32.
Men’s Cross Country
The men had 22 starters in their race including Daniel McConnell of Australia [our sole rider, and husband of Rebecca from the women’s race], of which 6 riders were lapped during the course of the race. An interesting outcome this race – the result of the 2014 event was exactly reversed. At Glasgow, Anton Cooper defeated Samuel Gaze by 3 seconds in a tight finish [both New Zealanders]. The same two riders battled it out for the Gold Medal today, with this time Gaze getting up by, well, a whisker, because they were recorded with the same time. Though they were both New Zealanders, it was rather obvious that there was no love lost between them!!!
As for our man – he had similar luck or bad luck as his wife, in the earlier race, fell back early, and was unable to make up sufficient ground to be a challenge for any medals. The final result:
GOLD: Samuel Gaze [New Zealand] 1.17.36; Silver: Anton Cooper [New Zealand]: 1.17.36; Bronze: Alan Hatherly [South Africa] 1.17.56. Australia’s Daniel McConnell finished in 7th place in a time of 1.19.59
Diving
Two medal events scheduled for today’s competition
Men’s 3m Springboard
After the preliminary rounds, in which there were 17 divers,, two of Australia’s three competitor’s qualified for the evening final. The leading qualifier was Philippe Gagne [Canada] with 448.40 pts. Australia’s Matthew Carter qualified 2nd with 436.25 pts, James Connor qualified 8th with 389.55 pts, while Kurtis Mathews finished in 17th place with 286.35 pts, and did not qualify to proceed to the final.
In the final, the Australians finished in 3rd and 6th position.
GOLD: Jack Laugher [England] 519.40 pts; Silver: Phillipe Gagne [Canada] 452.70 pts; Bronze: James Connor [Australia] 438.50 pts. Australia’s Matthew Carter finished in 6th position with 409 points.
Women’s 10m Platform
The preliminary rounds resulted in a best score of 339 pts by Malaysia’s Pandelela Rinong Pamg. Australia’s ‘young’ veteran, Melissa Wu, finished in 3rd position with 327.20 pts, while Brittany O’Brien was 7th [304.75] and Teju Williamson, 8th [293.80]. There were 12 competitors, and all 12 qualified for the final later in the evening.
The medal event was a wonderful result for Australia with the ‘veteran’ of the team, Melissa Wu winning Gold with her final dive. From memory, I think Melissa was as young as 13 years when she first competed at Melbourne in 2006, and her wins have generally come as part of a duo, so this individual victory was particularly sweet.
GOLD: Melissa Wu [Australia] 360.40 pts; Silver: Meaghan Benfeito [Canada] 359.75; Bronze: Lois Toulson [England] 344.20. Australia’s Brittany O’Brien finished 7th [322.50] and Teju Williamson, 11th [276.35]
Hockey
Four matches played tonight in the Women’s section as we close in on the medal matches
Women’s Placing 9-10: Wales drew with Ghana 1-1;
Women’s Placing 7-8: Scotland defeated Malaysia 4-2;
Women’s Semi-final: England drew with New Zealand 0-0
Women’s Semi-final: Australia defeated India 1-0
At the time of writing, I’m uncertain as to the treatment applied to the two drawn matches
Lawn Bowls
Today’s events, saw Australia play in two Gold Medal matches – for Women’s Triples, and the Open B6/B7/B8 [Para] Triples.
Women’s Triples Semi-final: Australia [Carla Krinzanic, Natasha Scott & Rebecca van Asch] defeated England 16-13; Gold Medal Match: Australia defeated Scotland 21-12. Bronze Medal Match: Eng defeated land defeated Canada 20-12;
Open B6/B7/B8 [Para] Triples: Gold Medal Match: Australia [Josh Thornton, Tony Bonnell, & Ken Hansen] defeated New Zealand 14-13; Bronze Medal Match: South Africa defeated England 16-13;
Men’s Singles Quarter-final: Aaron Wilson [Australia] defeated Gary Kelly [Northern Ireland] 21-9 ;
Women’s Pairs Quarter final: Scotland defeated Australia [Lelsey Cottrell & Karen Murphy] 16-15;
Men’s Fours: , Round 5: Australia [Barrie Lester, Brett Wilkie, Nathan Rice & Aron Sherriff] defeated South Africa 27-6;. Quarter Final: Australia [Barrie Lester, Brett Wilkie, Nathan Rice & Aron Sherriff] defeated Northern Ireland 13-9; Semi-finals: Australia defeated Wales 15-5; Scotland defeated England 18-10;
Netball
There were four netball matches this afternoon as the non-medal contenders attempted to assert their authority in the general rankings below 1-4.
Women’s placing 5-6: South Africa defeated Uganda 53-42;
Women’s placing 7-8: Malawi defeated Northern Ireland 60-52;
Women’s placing 9-10: Scotland defeated Barbados 50-48;
Women’s placing 11-12: Wales defeated Fiji 81-32;
Rhythmic Gymnastics
All Round Individual Finals
I can’t admit to having any specific viewing interest in this ‘sport’, but it was interesting to see that the Australian competitors performed well, though outside of the medals.
GOLD: Diamanto Evripidou [Cyprus] 55.750 pts; Silver: Katherine Uchida [Canada] 52.650; Bronze: Kwan Dict Weng [Malaysia] 51.500. Australia’s Enid Sung finished in 4th place, just outside of the medals, with 50.725. Alexandra Kiroi-Bogatyreva finished 10th with 46.100
Shooting
Men’s 25m Rapid Fire Pistol Qualification, Stage 1
We had 13 competitors in this first qualification stage, with the leading score created by Neeraj Kumar of India, with 291-7. Australia’s Sergie Evglevski was in 5th position [285-7], and David Chapman, 8th [279-4] The 2nd stage, and the Final take place tomorrow.
Queen’s Prize Individual Finals Day 2
A big field of 33 shooters, with today’s competition ending with the leading contender Australia’s Jim Bailey with a score of 255-7. Ben Emms [Australia] was in 12th position [252-29]. The event will be concluded on Saturday.
Women’s 50m Rifle Prone Finals
Our Australian women finished down the list here, as the event was taken out by the shooter from Singapore.
GOLD: Martina Lindsay Veloso [Singapore] 621.0 GR; Silver: Tejaswini Sawant [India] 618.9; Bronze: Seonaid McIntosh [Scotland] 618.1. Australia’s Robyn Ridley finished in 8th position with 612.5, and Susannah Smith, 13th, with score of 606.7
Squash
Mixed Doubles: Round of 16: Australia[Donna Urquhart/Cameron Pilley] defeated Cayman Island 2-0[11-7,11-5]; Australia [Rachael Grinham & Ryan Cluskelly] defeated Pakistan 2-0 [11-3,11-1]; Quarter Final: Australia vs Australia [Donna Urquhart/Cameron Pilley] defeated Australia [Rachael Grinham & Ryan Cluskelly] 2-0 [11-6,11-9]
Men’s Doubles Round of 16: Australia [Cameron Pilley & Ryan Cluskelly] defeated Guyuna 2-0 [11-9,11-7]; Australia [Zac Alexander & David Palmer] defeated Wales 2-0 [11-1,11-6];
Table Tennis
Women’s Doubles, Round of 16: Australia [Jian Fang Lay & Miao Miao] defeated Singapore 3-2 [12-10,4-11,2-11,11-6,11-8]; Australia [Michelle Bromley & Melissa Tapper] defeated Malaysia 3-1 [11-2,12-10,9-11,11-7];
Women’s Doubles Quarter Final: Malaysia defeated Australia [Jian Fang Lay & Miao Miao] 3-1 [9-11,13-11,11-9,11-9];
Men’s Doubles, Round of 16: Australia [Heming Hu & Xin Yan] defeated Trinidad & Tobago 3-0 [11-2,12-10,11-9];
MTT 6-10 [Para] Singles: Theo Gogill [South Africa] defeated Barak Mizrachi [Australia] 3-0 [11-4,11-3,11-6]; Melissa Tapper [Australia] defeated Vera Nime [PNG] 3-0 [11-2,11-5,11-3]; Andrea McDonald [Australia] defeated Vaishnavi Sutar [India] 3-0 [11-3,11-3,11-1];
Mixed Doubles Round of 16: Australia [Jian Fang Lay & Xin Yan] defeated Singapore 3-2 [11-8,6-11,11-6,5-11,11-3]; England defeated Australia [Trent Carter & Tracy Feng] 3-1 [11-6,5-11,11-5,11-9]; Singapore defeated Australia [Hu Hemming & Melissa Tapper] 3-2 [11-7,11-4,9-11,9-11,11-9];
Women’s Singles Round of 16: Manika Batra [India] defeated Tracy Feng [Australia] 4-1 [11-6, 11-6,9-11,11-9,11-7]; Tianwei Feng [Singapore] defeated Melissa Tapper [Australia] 4-0 [11-5,11-2,11-9,11-7]; Jian Fang Lay [Australia] defeated Ying Ho [Malaysia] 4-1 [8-11,11-5,11-7,11-2,11-5];
Men’s Singles Round of 16: Sharath Achanta [India] defeated Heming Hu [Australia] 4-1 [11-8,12-10,8-11,11-6,11-5];
Wrestling Competition
These contests take place on a 12×12 metre mat. The competition features men’s and women’s freestyle Wrestling across six weight categories in each. A match consists of two periods of three minutes, with a 30 second break in between. A pin is awarded when a wrestler pins their opponent’s shoulder to the mat. Wrestlers also score points for takedowns, turns and throws. The winner is declared by the addition of points scored in both period. If at any point, a wrestler gains a 10-point advantage, the match ends automatically.
Medals were awarded today in the categories of Men’s Freestyle 57kg, and 74kg; and Women’s 76kg. There were a large number of preliminary bouts held, leading up to the medal stages. One Gold, one Silver, and two Bronze medals are awarded in each case.
Men’s Freestyle 57 kg event
GOLD/SILVER: Rahul Aware [India] defeated Steven Takahashi [Canada] 15-7;
Bronze Medal 1: Ebikewenimo Welson [Nigeria] defeated Jan Combrinck [South Africa] 5-2;
Bronze Medal 2: Muhammad Bilal [Pakistan] defeated George Ramm [England] 6-2
In the 1/8 Final, Australia’s Thomas Cicchini defeated Lowe Bingham [Nauru] 9-6; ; in the ¼ final, Rahul Aware [India] defeated Thomas Cicchini [Australia] 10-0; in Reperchage Round 2, George Ramm [England] defeated Thomas Cicchini [Australia] 11-0;
Women’s Freestyle 76 kg event
GOLD/SILVER: Erica Wiebe [Canada] defeated Blessing Onyebuchi [Nigrria] 4-2, victory by fall.
Bronze Medal 1: Georgina Nelthorpe [England] defeated Hajaratu Kamara [Sierra Leone] 10-0;
Bronze Medal 2: Kiran [India] defeated Katouskia Pariadhaven [Mauritius] 10-0;
In the ¼ final, Georgina Nelthorpe [England] defeated Naomi de Bruine [Australia] 8-4;
Men’s Freestyle 74 kg event
GOLD/SILVER: Kumar Sushil [India] defeated Johannes Botha [South Africa] 10-0;
Bronze Medal 1: Curtis Dodge [Wales] defeated Ebimienfaghe Assizecourt [Nigeria] 11-9;
Bronze Medal 2: Jevon Balfour [Canada] defeated Connor Evans [Australia] 14-4
In the 1/8 final, Connor Evans [Australia] defeated Sean Wrinkle [Bahamas] 4-0; In the ¼ final, Connor Evans [Australia] defeated Akash Khullar [New Zealand] 6-0; in the Semi-final, Kumar Sushil [India] defeated Connor Evans [Australia] 4-0;
Other results involving Australian wrestlers were as follows:
Women’s 53kg Freestyle Nordic: Deepika Dilhani [Sri Lanka] defeated Carissa Holland [Australia] 10-2; Diana Weicker [Canada] defeated Carissa Holland [Australia] 10-0; Bose Samuel [Nigeria] defeated Carissa Holland [Australia] 10-0; Babita Kumari [India] defeated Carissa Holland [Australia] 4-0;
The 21st Commonwealth Games: Part 6: 13th April
Day 8 of competition, Friday, 13th April
It’s another promise of a wonderful day ahead at various venues, including the athletics track where we will see heats of the Relays, the Men’s 1500 metres and the conclusion of the Heptathlon competition, while this evening’s program includes the Men’s 10,000 metres final. Always a highlight of my athletics viewing.
In shooting, the reigning champion Laetisha Scanlan will be defending her title in the Women’s Trap event today at Belmont Shooting Centre. Win or lose, the GC2018 Shooting Ambassador will still have something to celebrate when she opens fire on her Games campaign, it is her birthday today!
Boxing will be a day full of punch and high drama at Oxenford Studios as 28 semi-final bouts determine who advances to the gold medal fight. Scotland’s Reece McFadden has taken the first step to better his podium finish four years ago and GC2018 Ambassador Skye Nicolson has matched her late brother’s bronze medal.
In Hockey -World No.1 Australia will meet England, while India will play New Zealand in the semi-finals of the men’s Hockey competition. Australia heads into the semi-finals undefeated and looking to continue their form to give Captain and GC2018 Hockey Ambassador Mark Knowles a perfect send-off.
The basketball semi-finals come to the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre on day eight of GC2018 competitions, while the Canadian and South African women’s teams will make history when they compete in the first ever Rugby Sevens match at a Commonwealth Games.
Those events, and so much else to look forward to.
We commence at the athletics track, with a summary of today’s track and field vents.
Athletics
It was Day 2 of the Heptathlon competition, and e left yesterday, with Australia’s Celeste Mucci sitting in third place on 3613 points behind the leader, England’s Katarina Johnson-Thompson’s progressive score of 3675 points. There were three more events to b completed today.
Heptathlon Long Jump
The winner of the Long Jump was the English girl, Katerina Johnson-Thompson, with a jump of 6.50 which earned her a further 1007 points. Australia’s Celeste Mucci finished in 3rd place, with 6.10 and 880 points. Alysha Burnett finished in 8th position, 5.82 [795 points] . After that event, Mucci remains in 3rd place although she has lost ground behind the leader [now down by 29 pts] and 2nd place-getter, Nina Schultz
Heptathlon – Javelin Throw
Australia’s Alysha Burnett performed beautifully in this event with a leading throw of 46.56, earning her 794 points. Celeste Mucci finished in 6th position with a throw of 43.03 [726 pts].
With just the 800 metres heats to be run in the evening session, the leader of the competition remains as Katerinaze Johnson-Thompson [5448], from Nina Schultz [5274], with Celeste Mucci in the potential Bronx medal position with 5219 pts [55 pts behind the leader]
Heptathlon – 800 metres [2 heats]
As we went into this event, in which both Australians will run in the 2nd heat], we find that the athlete with the best personal time over 800 metres is the current Heptathlon leader, some 22 seconds better than Celeste Mucci, and 20 seconds better than Burnett – Mucci needs a marathon effort to make up ground and hope that both of the two leaders run poor 800 metres!! Unfortunately for both our girls, this run would prove to be their Achilles heel of the competition, and would knock Mucci in particular out of her medal hopes.
Run over two heats, Holly McArthur [Scotland] won the 1st heat in 2.13.04 [921 pts]. The remaining six competitors took their place in Heat 2, which saw Niamh Henderson [England] win in n2.12.18 [933 pts], from Nina Schultz, 2.17.40 [859 pts] with Katerina Johnson-Thompson 4th in 2.21.24 [807 pts].Mucci finished 5th in 2.29.73 [696 pts], and Burnett, 6th in 2.43.14 [537 pts]. The 800 metre run propelled Emersen into the bronze medal position ahead of Australia’s athlete.
GOLD: Kstarina Johnson-Thompson [England], 6,255 points; Silver: Nina Schultz [Canada], 6,133 points [PB]; Bronze: Niamh Emerson [England],6,043 points [PB]. Australia’s Celeste Mucci ginished in 4th place on 5,915 points [also a personal best], while Alysha Burnett, finished 9th, with 5,628 points. Of the 13 original starters, 12 completed the program
Men’s Javelin Throw Qualifying, Groups A and B [WR: 98.48]
Australia’s Luke Cann was amongst 12 throwers in Group A, where he finished in 4th spot with a throw of 77.43. The best throw was by Anderson Peters of Grenada, with a throw of 80.44. In Group B, Australia’s Hamish Peacock led the 12 competitors in this group with a best throw of 81.22.
Both Australians have qualified for Saturday’s Final – Peacock qualified 1st, while Cann qualified in 8th position.
Men’s 4 x 100 Metre Relay Heats [WR: 36.84 Jamaica]
Heat 1 saw the Australian foursome compete with an excellent effort to be just overrun in the closing metres by the South African runner – the Australians [Trae Williams, Rohan Browning, Jack Hale & Josh Clarke] led at each change of the baton, and as indicated, just overtaken before the finishing line. Placings were: 1. South Africa: [38.71]. 2. Australia [38.78]; 3. Sri Lanka [39.47]. The Gambia also qualified for the final, while Trinidad and Tobago were disqualified. In Heat 2, England won [38.15] from Jamaica [38.44] and Nigeria [38.52]. Also qualified were Barbadas, Malaysia and Singapore, with Canada disqualified. England’s disqualified from last night, ran a brilliant lap to bring his team home.
The final of this relay will be run on Saturday afternoon.
Men’s 1500 Metres Semi-finals [WR: 3.26.00: El Guerrouj]
We had two Australian runners in the 1st heat – Ryan Gregson, and backing up from last night’s bronze medal win, Luke Mathews. Mathews pushed forward early, with Gregson at the rear in a tight bunched group of runners, although by the 2nd lap, while still at the rear, he was looking comfortable. With a lap to go, Gregson starts to move through the field, and draws up to the leader in the straight, and in a mature piece of running doesn’t actually try and take the lead over the Kenyan. Mathews found the pace too hot in the end. The Heat result saw Timothy Cheruiyot [Kenya] first in 3.42.95 followed by Ryan Gregson [Australia] in 3.43.06, and 3rd, Kumari Taki [Kenya] 3.43.93.Luke Mathews finished in 7th place in a time of 3.47.08.
The 2nd Heat was won by Kenya’s Elijah Motonei Manangoi in 3.46.82. Australia’s Jordan Williamsz finished 5th in a close battle for the 4th position [1st four in each heat qualify plus the next best 4] in 3.47.75. He is Ryan Gregson’s training partner, and after pushing forward early in the race, but by the lap had dropped back towards the rear of the field, so with a lap to go, he had work to do – finished strongly to just miss 4rg but would qualify on his recorded time.
In fact, all three Australians qualified for Saturday afternoon’s Final – Gregson [2nd], Mathews [9th] and Williamsz [12th]
Men’s 4 x 400 Metre Relay Semi-finals [WR: 2.54.29, USA]
The 1st Heat featured just 5 teams. During the first leg, the English runner collapsed after 60metres with apparently a hamstring injury, and with Nigeria subsequently disqualified, the remaining teams of Botswana, Kenya and Fiji made up the three placegetters, the winning time being 3.05.01.
The 2nd Heat featured the Australian quartet of Murray Goodman, Daniel Mowen, Joshua Ralph and Steven Solomon – these four had only run together on three previous occasions, and it was a pleasant opportunity for our champion, Steven Solomon to have a group of capable athletes to team with. Australia were in 4th place after the first and second change, and had moved into 3rd place as Josh Ralph passed the baton to Steven Solomon. It was a powerful run by Solomon to get the team into automatic qualification into 3rd place. However – on the last change, it seems that Ralph passed the baton in an incorrect position, handicapping the runner from Trinidad and Tobago. For some considerable time, this was being discussed by the judges and officials, with the TV commentators convinced that the Australian team on the basis of what they saw, would be disqualified. It was then announced that all was okay, and Trinidad & Tobago had qualified in any case. However [take two] it was later announced that Australia had in fact being disqualified. An appeal was allowable, but a favourable outcome highly unlikely, so after a great team effort, it was all for nought!! The resultant placings went to Jamaica, India and The Bahamas. This was one of the big disappointments of the athletics competition.
Reported the following day – [after the appeal had been dismissed] – “Australia has blamed an official for the botched changeover…..[where]…Steve Solomon lined up in the wrong position for the final baton change. As third-leg runner Josh Ralph was fifth at the 200m, Solomon should have taken that spot at the hangover. But he stood in the fourth position, forcing Trinidad and Tobago’s Lalonde Gordon to run wide before passing his baton to Machel Cedenio”…..Ralph later made it clear which official was in error, tweeting ‘it takes a real man to admit he made a mistake, today’s official was not one of those men’!! Whatever the cause or mistake, we move on!!
After a somewhat dramatic morning, the evening session began another great night of track and field events with the Women’s Pole Vault. Men’s Discus and the Women’s Shotput, accompanied by the spectacle of track races, the Men’s 10,000 metres race!! What more could an athletics enthusiast ask for?
Women’s Pole Vault Final [WR: 5.06]
This is one of the longest running field events – nearly two and half hours in duration – Australia had three women in contention including one ‘relative’ veteran with the future of Australian women’s pole vaulting. The vaulter from Canada would upset the Olympic Gold medallist at Rio, from New Zealand, with a Games Record gold medal performance, although both were closely challenged at times by Australia’s young Nina Kennedy, a girl on the rise, with some spectacular heights over the bar. In the end however, from an original field of 14 starters, the outcome
was as follows.
GOLD: Alysha Newman [Canada] 4.75 [GR]; Silver: Eliza McCartney [New Zealand] 4.70; Bronze: Nina Kennedy [Australia] 4.60. Australia’s Liz Parnov finished equal 5th with 4.40, and Lisa Campbell in 11th position with a vault of 4.00 [she had shown early promise at the beginning of the event]
Men’s 3,000 metres Steeplechase Final [WR: 7.53.63]
.A smallish field of 11 in this race, including one Australian [James Nipperess] and three Kenyans, who would be expected to dominate the race. It was a big ask to expect much from the Aussie who was stepping up to a group of athletes well beyond his best time, but he was happy to be in the field. As always, a wonderful spectacle. As reported elsewhere, ‘Kenyan Kipruto, the reigning Olympic 3000m steeplechase champion, completed his collection of of championship crowns with the easiest win of the Gold Coast meeting’. Interestingly, with the Kenyans having finished 1,2 and 3 in the last five Commonwealth events of this discipline, they wanted a 6th successive sweep of the medals – but Matthew Hughes of Canada, the one white man amongst the leading group for much of the race threatened to spoil their party – Kipruto, winning as he liked, was talking incessantly to his teammates, encouraging them, especially the 4th placed runner at that stage, to keep up with him. It just worked, with the unfortunate Canadian falling over the finish line as the third Kenyan passed, and Kenya, once again, collected all three medals. Australia’s James Nipperess finished back in 9th position in a time of 8.58.16 [his previous best time had been 8.32.59]……………….GOLD: Conseslus Kipruto [Kenya] 8.10.08; Silver: Abraham Kibiwott [Kenya] 8.10.62; Bronze: 8.12.24. The Canadian who finished 4th, 0.09 seconds behind.
Men’s Discus Throw Final [WR: 24.08]
Our three Australians in this event all qualified for the final, finishing in the three spots outside the medals. One of those was Benn Harradine, who competed at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing and the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Harradine made the final of the discus at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne where he finished eighth. He went on to win the 2010 Commonwealth title. His 5th place finish at the 2011 World Championships is the best ever finish by an Australian man in the event. He has broken the Australian record three times, his current personal best being 68.20 metres thrown in Townsville in May 2013. He is a proud indigenous athlete from the Wotjobaluk tribe in the Wimmera district of Victoria. He cites land rights activist Vincent Lingiar as one of the people he admires. He is recognized in the Australian Olympic Committee list of Australian Indigenous Olympians. This would be his competition before retiring from the sport, and there were some emotional scenes with his family and supporters at the conclusion of tonight’s competition.
The gold and silver medals went to the Jamaican athletes.
GOLD: Federick Dacres [Jamaica] 68.20 [GR]; Silver: Traves Smikle [Jamaica] 63.98; Bronze: Apostolos Parellis [Cyprus]. For Australia, Matty Denny finished 4th [62.53], Mitchell Cooper, 5th [60.40], and Benn Harradine, 6th [59.92]
Men’s T47 [Para] 100 metres Final
There were 6 starters in this race, no Australian representative. GOLD: Suwaibidu Galadina [Nigeria] 11.04; Silver: James Arnott [England] 11.30; Bronze: Tevaughan Thomas [Jamaica] 11.63.
Women’s Shotput Final [WR: 22.63; CG: 20.47 Dame Valerie Adams]
The existing champion from New Zealand, was Dame Valerie Adams, who was going for her 4th successive win in these Games and this event [a few months after giving birth to her first child], – no other Games athlete had won their event more than three times. She is a four-time World champion, three time World Indoor champion, two-time Olympic and three-time Commonwealth champion. She currently holds the New Zealand, Oceanian, Commonwealth, and equal World Championship records with a personal best throw of 21.24 metres. Adams won a silver medal at Rio de Janeiro with a distance of 20.42 m behind US athlete Michelle Carter.
Today however, she would not achieve her desired milestone, being thwarted by the powerful shot-putter from Jamaica. While Australia had good representation in this vent in the past, we were without a representative on this occasion.
GOLD: Danniel Thomas-Dodd [Jamaica] 19.36; Silver: Dame Valerie Adams [New Zealand] 18.70; Bronze: Brittany Crew [Canada] 18.32.
Women’s 800 metre Final. [WR: 1.53.28; GR: 1.56.68, Caster Semenya]
Caster Semnya went into this final [after winning the 1500 metres earlier in the week] with a vice-like grip on the title, it was difficult to see who could beat her. In the end, she was far too strong, no one came near her in the end. As Paul Malone would report in Saturday’s Herald Sun “Caster Semenya raced effortlessly into Commonwealth Games history last night, leaving athletics bosses with the tough decision about how much further they will allow her to run. The Court of Arbitration for sport has given world athletics governing body, the IAAF, until July to explain how it intends to implement its hyper-androgenism regulations. The handful of women’s events it has scrutinised most notably include Semenya’s”. Speaking after the race, the athlete herself said “I’ve had to learn how to manage it myself, how to face the world. It’s not about what other people think of me, it’s about how I think of myself. I’m here to inspire the world, nothing else”. From one bio of the runner – “Future Olympic champion Caster Semenya was a teenage runner from a small village in South Africa when she became the centre of an international brouhaha about her gender in 2009’. That outcome of that is for others to judge – as on other occasions, her win the 800 metres was powerful and convincing.
GOLD: Caster Semenya [South Africa] 1.56.68 [new GR]; Silver: Margaret Nyairera Wambui [Kenya] 1.58.07; Bronze: Natoye Goule [Jamaica] 1.58.82. The starting field included two other Kenyans, two Ugandans and one English runner, no Australian.
Men’s 10,000 metres Final. [WR: 26.17.53]
One of the classic vents of any athletics program, this event attracted a relatively small field of 14 starters, including two Australian competitors – Patrick Tiernan and Stewart McSweyn. In recent times, the Ugandan runners have begun to exert their dominance in this race, with the starting list including 3 Ugandans and 3 Kenyans, who were expected to control the running to some degree. Throughout the duration of the race, after staying in touch with the leading group early in the race, the two Australians gradually fell back and would generally remain in around 10th and 11th position, and at the 5000 metre mark, were some 40 metres off the pace. At about the 20 minute mark, the New Zealander [Jake Robertson] took over the lead for a brief time from the African runners, although they would not allow that to remain that way for long. In the end, the Ugandan champion would break the Games record in a convincing final lap, in which he almost ‘teased’ his opposition to catch him!!….GOLD: Joshua Kiprui Cheptegei [Uganda] 27.19.62 [GR]: Silver: Mohammad Ahmed [Canada, of African heritage] 27.20.56; Bronze: Rodgers Kwemoi [Kenya] 27.28.66. Australia’s Stewart McSweyn finished in 11th position in 28.58.22, while Patrick Tiernan was disqualified – the reason for which I am unaware.
Women’s 100 metres Hurdles Final [WR: 12.20]
In a night that was supposed to be Sally Pearson’s return, two Australian girls stepped up to try and take her plce – Michelle Jenneke and Brianna Beahan. Jenneke would improve on her Glashow 4th place, and early in the race looked as though she might be a challenge for the medals, still in front at the halfway mark – until the Nigerian runner ‘scooted’ away!! GOLD: Oluwatobiloba Amusan [Nigeria] 12.68; Silver: Danielle Williams [Jamaica] 12.78; Bronze: Yanique Thompson [Jamaica] 12.97. Australia’s Michelle Jenneke finished 4th in 13.07, while Brianna Beahan finished 5th in 13.11.
Badminton
A day of quarter-final matches in the badminton competition, and those games in which Australian were involved resulted as follows.
Women’s Doubles Quarter-final: Australia [Setyana Mapasa & Gronya Somerville] defeated Malaysia 2-0 [21-15,21-16];
Mixed Doubles Quarter-final: England [Gabrielle & Chris Laycock] defeated Australia [Sawan Serasinghe & Setyana Mapasa] 2-0 [21-10,21-14];
.Basketball
The basketball competition resumes today with the women’s semi-finals.
Semi-final 1: England defeated Canada 65-53;;
Semi-final 2: Australia defeated New Zealand 109-50.
Boxing
It was semi-final day in the Boxing competition, and Australian had a number of fighters in contention, with some considerable success, with their results are detailed below. Two bronze medals are awarded in each division, in addition to the gold and silver awards.
Women’s 51 kg Semi-final 1: Lisa Whiteside [England] defeated Taylah Robertson [Australia] 3-2;
Women’s 60 kg Semi-final 1: Anja Stridsman [Australia] defeated Troy Garton [New Zealand] 5-0;
Men’s 50 kg, Semi-final 2: Harry Garside [Australia] defeated Michael McDonagh [Wales] 3-2;
Men’s 91 kg, Semi-final 1: Jason Whateley [Australia] defeated Naman Tanwar [Ondia] 4-0;
Women’s 57 kg, Semi-final 2: Skye Nicholson [Australia] defeated Sabrina Aubin-Boucher [Canada] 4-1, a very popular winner, sister of former Olympic and Commonwealth Gams boxer, Jamie Nicholson
Women’s 75 kg, Semi-final 1: Caitlin Parker [Australia] defeated Millicent Agboegbulem [Nigeria] 5-0;
Men’s 81 kg, Semi-final 1: Sammy Lee [Wales] defeated Clay Waterman [Australia] 4-1;
Diving
Men’s Synchronised 10m Platform Final
The Australian pair collected the Bronze in this competition, with the two duos from England winning the major medals……………GOLD: Thomas Daley & Daniel Goodfellow [England] 405.81 pts; Silver: Matthew Dixon & Noah Williams [England] 399.99; Bronze: Dominic Bedggood & Declan Stacey [Australia] 397.92.
In the Final tonight, the English diver, Jack Laugher successfully won his third Gold of the tournament.
GOLD: Jack Laugher & Chris Mears [England] 436.17; Silver: Phillipe Gagne & Francois Imbeau-Dulac [Canada] 415.23; Bronze: Dominic Bedggood & Matthew Carter [Australia] 408.12. The 2nd Australian duo of James Connor & Kurtis Mathews finished in 6th position with 370.17
Women’s 1m Springboard Final
The preliminary round of this event saw the Australian girls finish 1 and 2 in the qualifying stage – Esther Qin [273.80 pts] and Georgia Sheehan [ 263.75 pts]. South Africa’s Julia Vincent was 3rd with 260.95.
In the final, held this evening – the two Aussie girls picked up the minor medals, behind an excellent display of diving by the girl from Scotland………………GOLD: Grace Reid [Scotland] 275.30; Silver: Gorgia Sheehan [Australia] 264.00; Bronze: Esther Qin [Australia] 252.95.
Hockey
Today’s matches include the two men’s semi-finals, men’s placings 5-10, and the women’s 5-6 placing match.
Men’s Semi-final 1: New Zealand defeated India: 3-2;
Men’s Semi-final 2: Australia defeated England 2-1;
Men’s Placing 5-6: Malaysia defeated Scotland 2-1;
Men’s Placing 7-8: Pakistan defeated Canada 3-1’;
Men’s Placing 9-10: Wales defeated South Africa 3-2;
Women’s Placing 5-6: Canada defeated South Africa 3-1.
Lawn Bowls
Women’s Pairs Finals
GOLD/Silver Medals: Malaysia defeated South Africa 15-14;
Bronze Medal match: Scotland defeated Canada 18-10.
Men’s Singles Finals
Semi-Finals: Aaron Wilson [Australia] defeated Robert Paxton [England] 21-16; Ryan Bester [Canada] defeated Darren Burnett [Scotland] 21-19;
GOLD/Silver Medal: Aaron Wilson [Australia] defeated Ryan Bester [Canada] 21-14 – someone suggested that watching Wilson play ‘was worth the price of admission alone’ [an exciting player to watch], in fact the final was a fascinating event to watch. With the result depending on the first bowler to reach a score of 21, Wilson came from behind in the middle period of Ends, took a powerful lead, but then had to withstand a determined fight back by the Canadian, which created an exciting and tense final few ends. From the 10th to the 22nd Ends, the scores went as follows [with Wilson’s score shown first, in the brackets] – 10 [6-8], 12 [8-8], 13 [11-8], 14 [14-8]. 15 [16-8], 16 [16-9], 17 [16-10], 18 [18-10], 19 [18-13], 20 [19-13], 21 [19-14], and 22 [21-14] ……………probably not so attractive to some, were the victory celebrations of Wilson, running across the green with his shirt off!!
Bronze Medal: Robert Paxton [England] defeated Darren Burnett [Scotland] 21-14
Men’s Fours Finals
GOLD/Silver Medals: Scotland [Ronald Duncan, Derek Oliver, Paul Foster, Alexandra Marshall] defeated Australia [Barrie Lester, Brett Wilkie, Nathan Rice, Aron Sherriff] 15-13
Bronze Medal match: England defeated Wales 15-9;
Men’s Singles Gold Medal Match: Aaron Wilson [Australia] vs Ryan Bester [Canada]
Men’s Singles Bronze Medal Match: Robert Paxton [England] vs Darren Burnett [Scotland]
Rhythmic Gymnastics
The individual apparatus finals were held today, with an Australian girl winning the one bronze medal
Hoop Final
GOLD: Diamanta Evripidou [Cyprus] 14.850; Silver: Laura Halford [Wales] 14.000; Bronze: Kwam Dict Weng [Malaysia] 13.550. Australia’s Enid Sung finished in 4th position with 13.400
Ball Final.
GOLD: Diamanta Evripidou [Cyprus] 13.800; Silver: Sei Yan Koi [Malaysia] 13.400; Bronze: Alexandra Kiroi-Bogatyreva [Australia] 13.250. Australia’s Danieele Prince finished in 8th position [7.600].
Clubs Final
GOLD: Sophie Crane ;Canada] 13.950; Silver: Sei Yan Koi [Malaysia] 13.850; Bronze: Diamanta Evripidou [Cyprus] 13.550. Australia’s Enid Sung finished 8th [9.850].
Ribbon Final
GOLD: Kwam Dict Weng [Malaysia] 13.200; Silver: Diamanta Evripidou [Cyprus] 12.900; Bronze: Sei Yan Koi [Malaysia] 12.000. Australia’s Alexandra Kiroi-Bogatyreva finished 5th with 11.350, and Enid Sung, 6th [10.200]
Rugby Sevens
Women’s Pool matches began this competition today –
Pool A: Canada defeated South Africa 29-0; New Zealand defeated Kenya 45-0;; Canada defeated Kenya 24-12; New Zealand defeated South Africa 41-0;
Pool B: England defeated Fiji 17-5; Australia defeated Wales 34-5; Fiji defeated Wales 29-7; Australia defeated England 29-12;
Shooting
More shooting success at the Belmont Shooting Centre for Australian comptitors.
Women’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions Finals
GOLD: Tejaswini Sawant [India] 457.9 [GR]; Silver: AnjumMoudgil [India] 455.7; Bronze: Seonaid McIntosh [Scotland] 444.60. Australia’s Robyn Ridley finished 8th [398.2]. Emma Adams finished in 15th position inj the preliminary round.
Men’s 25m Rapid Fire Pistol Finals
A brilliant effort by 15 year old Anish of India with four perfect scores from 8 attempts [and one inexplicable score of 1/5 in his 4th round]. Another success for an Australian shooter in this event with a silver medal.
GOLD:: Anish [India] 30 [GR]; Silver: Sergei Evgleski [Australia] 28; Bronze: Sam Gowin [England] 17. David Chapman of Australia finished in 4th place with a score of 15.
Women’s Trap Finals.
A great result for Australia’s Laetisha Scanlan, to help celebrate her birthday – a Gold medal. She had initially finished in 6th place at the qualification stage of the event earlier in the day.
GOLD: Laetisha Scanlan [Australia] 38 [GR]; Silver: Kirsty Barr [Northern Ireland] 37; Bronze: Sarah Wixey [Wales] 28. Catherine Skinner of Australia finished 8th in those preliminaries.
Men’s Trap Qualification, Day 1:
With a big filed of 40 shooters, our two Australian competitors finished in the top five qualified scores – Michael Iles-Crevatin, 3rd with a score of 47, and Thomas Grice, 5th with46 pts. The leading score was Brian Galea of Malta, with a Games Record of 48. Qualification Day 2, and the Finals will be held tomorrow.
Squash
Doubles quarter-finals dominated today’s program, and results are as follows.
Women’s Doubles Quarter-finals: New Zealand defeated England[1] 2-0; India defeated Canada 2-1; England [2] defeated Malaysia 2-1; Australia [Rachael Grinham & Donna Urquhart] defeated Wales 2-1 [9-11, 11-10, 11-3];
Men’s Doubles Quarter-finals: England defeated India 2-1; Scotland defeated Malaysia 2-1; England defeated Australia [1] [Ryan Cuskelly & Cameron Pilley] 2-1 [9-11,11-8,11-10]; Australia [2] [Zac Alexander & David Palmer] defeated New Zealand 2-1 [11-9, 6-11, 11-7];
Mixed Doubles Semi-finals: India defeated New Zealand 2-1; Australia [Donna Urquhart & Cameron Pilley] defeated England 2-1 [10-11, 11-7, 11-7];
Table Tennis
Men’s Doubles Quarter-finals: India [1] defeated England[1] 3-1; Singapore[1] defeated Nigeria 3-1; England [2] defeated Singapore[2] 3-2; India [2] defeated Australia [Heming Hu & Xin Yan] 3-1 [11-8, 10-12, 12-10, 11-8];
Men’s TT6-10 [Para] Singles Semi-finals: England [Kim Daybell] defeated South Africa [Theo Coghill] 3-2; England [Ross Wilson] defeated Wales [Joshua Stacey] 3-1
Mixed Doubles Quarter-finals: Singapore[1] defeated England[1] 3-0; India[1] defeated Canada 3-1; England [2] defeated India [2] 3-1; India[3] defeated Singapore[2] 3-0
Women’s TT 6-10 [Para] Singles Semi-finals: Melissa Tapper [Australia] defeated Andrea McDonell [Australia] 3-1 [6-11, 11-3, 11-4, 11-1]; and Faith Obazuaye [Nigeria] defeated Felicity Pickard [England]3-0;
Women’s Doubles Semi-finals: Singapore defeated India[1] 3-0; and, India[2] defeated Malaysia 3-0;
Men’s Singles Quarter-finals: Nigeria defeated India[1] 4-0; India[2] defeated England[1] 4-2; Singapore defeated Canada 4-1; and England [2] defeated India[3] 4-0;
Women’s Singles Quarter-final: Mo Zhang [Canada] defeat Jian Fang Lay [Australia] 4-0 [11-2,11-2,11-2,11-6];
Men’s Doubles Semi-finals: India[1] defeated Singapore 3-1; and England defeated India[2] 3-0;
Women’s Doubles GOLD/Silver Medal match: Singapore defeated India[1] 3-0;
Women’s Doubled Bronze Medal match: Malaysia defeated India[2] 3-1.
Wrestling
There were medal events completed today.
Men’s Freestyle 65 kg:
For Gold Medal: Balrang [India] defeated Kane Charig [Wales]10-0;
For Bronze medals [2]: Charlie Bowling [England] defeated Jean Guyliane Bandou [Mauritius] 10-0; and Amas Daniel [Nigeria] defeated Vincent de Marinis [Canada] 3-1;
Women’s Freestyle 57 kg
For Gold Medal: Odunayo Adekuoroye [Nigeria] defeated Pooja Dhandi [India] 7-5;
For Bronze Medal: Emily Schaefer [Canada] defeated Joseph Essombe Tiako [Cameroon] 13-3;
Women’s Freestyle 68 kg.
For Gold Medal: Blessing Oborududu [Nigeria] defeated Danielle Lapage [Canada] 4-3
For Bronze Medal: Divya Kakran [India] defeated Sherin Sultana [Bangladesh] 4-0;
Men’s Freestyle 97 kg
For Gold Medal: Martin Erasmus [South Africa] defeated Mausam Khatri [India] 12.2
For Bronze Medals [2]: Alexios Kaouslidis [Cyprus] defeated Soso Tamarau [Nigeria] 2-1; and Jordan Steen [Canada] defeated Samuel Belkin [New Zealand] 10-0;
Preliminary results with Australian involvement.
Men’s Freestyle 97 kg 1-8 Finals: Nicolaas Verreynne [Australia] defeated Joe Henry [Scotland] 5-0; Quarter-final: Martin Erasmus [South Africa] defeated Nicolaas Verreynne [Australia] 12-1; Reperchage Round 2: Samuel Belkin [New Zealand] defeated Nicolaas Verreynne [Australia] 7-3;
Men’s Freestyle 65 kg 1-8 finals: Vincent de Marinis [Canada] defeated Mehrdad Tarasah [Australia] – 12-1;
The 21st Commonwealth Games: Part 7: 14-15 April
This is our final report, which covers the last two days of the Games, the weekend of the 14th and 15th April. As indicated at the outset, I have prepared this from an Australian supporters point of view, though hopefully , have also been inclusive of other athletes and nations.
Day 9 of competition, Saturday, 14th April
The penultimate day in the Games – a day of highs and lows for so many of our athletes, and those from other nations, some wonderful sporting contests.
And a day which this writer enjoyed sharing with Australia’s current greatest racehorse – Winx, this afternoon, won her 25th consecutive race ,or as I described it in another venue – ‘It’s Winx day again – win no. 25 maybe, in a row, and Group 1 No. 18 – last with 600 to go, yet still gets up, what a horse (even if I backed the 2ND placed Weir horse), magnificent, equals Black Caviar’s record J’
But back to the Commonwealth Games, and as I’ve done on previous days, we will go through the various sports, event by event, beginning with the athletics spectacle.
Athletics
Final day on the track today – with the drama and tension of the men’s and women’s 4 x 100 and 4 x 499 relays being the highlight, with Jamaica, Botswana and Trinidad & Tobago the teams to beat. Another highlight – the Men’s 1500 metres Final, together with the women’s high jump, and the men’s triple jump & javelin events.
Women’s High Jump Final [WR: 2.09]
Two Australians in the start list – Nicola McDermott and Cassie Purdon – in a starting list of 11 jumpers
Nicola performed very well to finish in 3rd position in this event
GOLD: Levern Spencer [Saint Lucia] 1.95; Silver: Morgan Lake [England] 1.93; Bronze: Nicola McDermott [Australia] 1.91 [ a personal best jump].Australia’s Cassie Purdon finished in 6th position on 1.84.
Men’s Javelin Final [WR: 98.48]
Australia’s representatives were Luke Cann and Hamish Peacock, among 12 starters in the Final. It proved to be another successful outcome for our Australian competitors behind a superior Indian thrower, named, Chopra who left the rest of the field behind very early in the competition, though still well below the existing World and Games records.
GOLD: Neeraj Chopra [India] 86.47; Silver: Hamish Peacock [Australia] 82.59; Bronze: Anderson Peters [Grenada] 82.20. Australia’s Luke Cann finished in 6th position with a throw of 76.99.
Men’s 4 x 100 Metres Relay Final [WR: 36.84: Jamaica]
Australia’s young, and relatively inexperienced relay quartet – Trae Williams; Rohan Browning; Jack Hale; Josh Clarke. Other teams were Barbados, Jamaica, Malaysia, South Africa, England, Nigeria & Sri Lanka. England have won the event 7 times previously, Jamaica three times, and Australia twice, the most recent in 1974.
A magnificent first three legs by the Aussies with Jack Hale just in front at the last change – Josh Clarke for the last leg, well he had top class athletes to hold off in that last 100 meetings, couldn’t do it. Nigeria dropped the baton at the second change, but all other teams got through.
GOLD: England: 38.13 [the team of Harry Aikines-Aryeetey, Reuben Arthur, Zharnel Hughes, and Richard Kilty]; Silver: South Africa: 37.24; Bronze: Jamaica: 38.35; 4th: Australia: 38.58; 5th: Barbados: 39.04; 6th: Sri Lanka: 39.08; 7th: Malaysia: 39.37; Nigeria: Disqualified.
Women’s 4 x 100 Metres Relay Final
The Australian quarter, a young & enthusiastic team – Brianna Beahan, Maddie Coates, Riley Day, Melissa Breen – our young team of girls went into this race confident of a good showing against some experienced and strong opposition.
Unfortunately, disaster struck for our girls – with Brianna, Maddie and Riley having run competent legs of the race, and as Riley prepared to pass the baton to our last runner, Melissa Breen appeared to stumble as she moved off, and fell to the track, the Australian’s race was over!! In the post-race interview with the girls, while disappointed, all seemed fairly up-brat and accepting of the outcome, although I felt for young Riley Day, who was obviously deeply disappointed [she had been one of the TV network’s promotional ambassadors throughout the Games.
It was later revealed that Australia would have been disqualified in any case, after the lead-off runner, Brianna Beahan ran out of her lane before her exchange with Maddie Coates. Some lessons for the young team.
However, the race still had a winner, a very powerful English team again – Finette Agyapong, Dina Asher-Smith, Anyika Onuora, and Asha Philip – winning the GOLD in 42.46. Silver went to Jamaica [42.52], and Bronze to Nigeria 42.75. 4th was Trinidad & Tobago [43.50], 5th: Ghana [43.64], 6th Cameroon [45.24], while Australia were disqualified, and the Bahamas team did not start.
Men’s Triple Jump Final [WR: 18.29]
This event saw the three medals go to nations that have not figured largely in medal ceremonies throughout the Games, which was great to see. No Australians featured in the final field of jumpers [Emmanuel Fakiye had finished 8th in his group with a throw of 15.70, finishing 15th overall in the qualifying rankings].
GOLD: Troy Doris [Guyana] 16.88; Silver: Yordanys Duranona Gatcia [Dominica] 16.86; Bronze: Marcel Mayack II [Cameroon] 16.80.
Women’s 5000 Metres Final [WR: 14.11.15]
Another of the popular events as these competitions, this race attracted a field of 18 starters, including 3 Kenyans, 2 Ugandans and 3 Aussies – Celia Sulloherrn, Eloise Wellings [in her 4th Games attempt, having finished in the top 5 placings on each previous occasion] and Madeline Hills. Actually two of the Aussies set out early in the race, basically leading but setting a rather slow pace, which the rest of a tightly packed field accepted – for a while. With four laps to go, Celia and Eloise were still running around 3rd and 4th, and with a lap to go, with two Kenyan runners clearly in the lead, the battle was on for the Bronze medal between a tiring Uganda runner, Australia’s gutsy running Celia Sullohern, and the fast finishing English favourite, Laura Weightman, who had been expected to challenge for the medals, and as far as the Bronze was concerned, appeared to have timed her race perfectly. Such was the case – in that last lap, there were two races going on – between the Kenyans for 1st and 2nd, and the afore-mentioned race for Bronze. Weightman proved too strong in the closing stages, but it had been a brave effort by the Australian girl.
GOLD: Hellen Obiri [Kenya] 15.13.11; Silver: Margaret Chelimo Kipkemboi [Kenya] 15.15.28; Bronze: Laura Weightman [England] 15.25.84. Australia’s Celia Sullohern finished 5th in 15.34.73 [9 seconds behind the 3rd placegetter]; Eloise Wellings was 8th in 15.39.02, and Madeline Hills, 10th in 15.46.92.
Men’s 1500 metres Final [WR: 3.26: El Guerrouj]
Australia’s Ryan Gregson might have felt this was to be his turn, after promising much in recent years, and certainly in this event he went out hard in the early stages. Thre were 12 starters, which included Gregson and two other Australians – Luke Mathews and Jordan Williamsz, together with 3 Kenyans, and 2 Scots.
Over the years we have witnessed many wonderful 1500 metre races at the international level, in particular the efforts over recent years of the current world record holder Hicham El Guerrouj, spectacular to watch, and probably today’s field was likely not up to those standards, though obviously the two Kenyans who finished 1 and 2 today might disagree!!
With a lap to go, one felt that Gregson was in with a show, being well placed near the front, but as he admitted himself afterwards, he just didn’t have the ‘kick’ in that final hectic lap which saw the Kenyans run away with it, those the man from Scotland a real chance for the Silver at one stage.
GOLD: Elijah Motonei Manangoi [Kenya] 3.34.78; Silver: Timothy Cheruitot [Kenya] 3.35.17; Bronze: Jake Wightman [Scotland] 3.35.97. Australia’s Ryan Gregson fell back in that last lap to finish in 9th position in a time of 3.39.24. Jordan Williamsz finished strongly to come in 6th in 3.38.34, while Luke Mathews after his Bronze win earlier in the meet, finished 12th [last] in 3.47.04. All three Aussies had run faster times in their career.
Women’s 4 x 400 metres Relay Final [WR: 3.15.17; GR: Jamaica3.23.2]
It was great to have another women’s Australian quartet in this race, a mix of the new and then experienced. The Australian girls in order of running were Anneliese Rubie, Caitlin Sargent-Jones, Lauren Wells and Morgan Mitchell, once again, lining up against strong and experienced teams from Jamaica, Botswana, England, etc.
By the end of the second 400 metres, the Australian team was in 3rd position after good laps from Anneliese and Caitlin, but dropped to around 4th position after the 3rd leg – when our Indigenous runner, Morgan took off with the baton. She got up into 3rd position, but was overtaken at the start of the final straight by the athletes from Botawana and England – at which stage, you might have expected her to ‘give it away’, but she stayed with them to the finishing line [perhaps just in case there were disqualifications ahead of her]. Thankfully in this race, all teams got around the course successfully.
GOLD: Jamaica: 3.24.00; Siolver: Nigeria: 3.25.29; Bronze: Botawana: 3.26.86. 4th: England: 3.27.21; 5th: Australia: 3.27.43; 6th: Scotland: 3.29.18; 7th: India: 3.33.61; 8th: Uganda: 3.35.03
Men’s 4 x 400 metres Relay Final [WR: 2.54.29 USA; GR: Jamaica:2.59.03]
We had no Australian team in this race [following that disqualification in the heat], and another relay not without controversey, with India failing to finished, and the Kenya team disqualified for an incorrect change through the race. Despite that, it was a wonderful vent to finish the track competition with a strong win in the closing stags to the team from Botswana.
GOLD: Botswana: 3.01.78; Silver: The Bahamas: 3.01.92; Bronze: Jamaica: 3.01.97; 4th: Trinidad & Tobago: 3.02.85: 5th: Fiji: 3.15.10; 6th: Turks and Caicos Islands: 3.1.39
With those relays representing the end of the Track & Field part of the athletics program, I’d like to quote part of a piece which would appear in Sunday’s media, written by Scott Gullan [and headed ‘Performances restore faith in track and field’]………….”Four years ago Australia’s track-and-field was in disarray, with the coach sent home in disgrace, after a shambolic Commonwealth Games. As the curtain fell on the athletics program of the Gold Coast Games last night, with only marathons to come this morning, the status of the team couldn’t be more different. The head coach has a spring in his step, the medal haul has almost doubled, and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics can’t come around quickly enough. ‘There is excitement back in our sport again,’ said Craig, ‘We haven’t being this well-placed two years out from an Olympic Games for a long while’………….The quality of the performance is what excites Hilliard. ‘The two biggest things for me is performing when it counts, coming out and actually delivering,’ he said.”
Badminton
We had singles and doubles semi-finals in the badminton today, with Australians only participating in two matches. Results of the day’s matches were as follows.
Women’s Doubles Semi-finals: England [1] defeated Australia [Setyana Mapasa & Granya Somerville] 2-0 [21-15,21-15]; England [2] defeated Malaysia 2-1;
Men’s Doubles Semi-finals: India defeated Sri Lanka 2-0; England defeated Malaysia 2-1;
Men’s Singles Semi-finals: Srikanth Kidambi [India] defeated Rajiv Ouseph [England] 2-0; Chong Wei Lee [Malaysia] defeated H.S Prannoy [India] 2-1;
Women’s Singles Semi-finals: Saina Nehwal [India] defeated Kirsty Gilmour [Scotland] 2-1; Venkata Pusarla [India] defeated Michelle Li [Canada] 2-0;
Mixed Doubles Semi-finals: England [1] defeated Malaysia 2-0; England [2] defeated India 2-1;
Men’s Doubles Bronze Medal Match: Malaysia defeated Sri Lanka 2-0;
Women’s Doubles Bronze Medal Match: India defeated Australia [Setyana Mapasa & Granya Somerville] 2-0;
Women’s Singles Bronze Medal Match: Kirsty Gilmour [Scotland] defeated Michelle Li [Canada] 2-0 ;
Men’s Singles Bronze Medal Match: Rajiv Ouseph [England] defeated H.S Prannoy [India] 2-1;
Mixed Doubles Bronze Medal Match: Malaysia defeated India 2-0 ,
Basketball
Men’s Semi-final Match: Australia defeated Scotland 103-46 [halftime:28-18];
Men’s Semi-final Match: Canada defeated New Zealand 88-86,
Women’s Bronze Medal Match: New Zealand defeated Canada 74-58;
Women’s GOLD Medal Match: Australia defeated England 99-55;
In this match, Australia overcame the shock 2nd quarter ejection of star Liz Cambage to achieve that win. Accortding to one report “Cambage had a running battle with the whistle-happy referees through the first two quarters when she struck foul trouble, lost her cool, allegedly swore at a referee and was thrown out of the game”.
Boxing
It was all about gold medals at the Oxenford Studios today, with Boxing’s 16 gold medal bouts, a great day’s entertainment, and some reward for an Australian squad that has performed so well with five Australians going for gold medals.
Of particular note, were the wins of Skye Nicholson, who dedicated her win to her brothers Jamie [a Barcelona Olympian and Commonwealth Games Bronze medallist, and 10 year old Gavin, who were killed in a car accident in 1994 – born in 1995, Skye never met her brothers]. Unfortunately, her opponent in the 57 kg bout was not so accepting of the result – “I don’t really know how I lost that fight. I don’t even think it was close” she said. “But she’s the face of the Games, and sometimes that’s the way it is”.
Meanwhile, Melbourne plumber Harry Garside caused a huge upset by winning a 3-2 split decision over Indian hot favourite Manish Kaushik in the men’s 60 kg division. Another brave effort came in the 60 kg Division for women, when Anja Stridsman overcame a torn anterior cruciate ligament suffered in a fight in Poland last year, to win the Gold in her event.
Two of our gold medal fight entrants were not so lucky, with Jason Whateley [91 kg] and Caitlin Parker [75 kg] both failing but collecting Silver medals for their efforts.
Women’s 45-48 kg Final Bout: McMery Kom [India] defeated Kristine O’Hara [Northern Ireland] 5-0;
Women’s 51 kg Final Bout: Lisa Whiteside [England] defeated Carly McNaul [Northern Ireland] 5-0;
Women’s 60kg Final Bout: Anja Stridesman [Australia] defeated Paige Murney [England] 5-0;
Men’s 46-49 kg Final Bout: Galal Yadai [England] defeated Amit [India] 3-1;
Men’s 52 kg Final Bout: Gaurav Solanko [India] defeated Brendan Irvine [Northern Ireland] 4-1;
Men’s 60kg Final Bout: Harry Garside [Australia] defeated Manish Kaushik [India] 3-2;
Men’s 64 kg Final Bout: Jonas Jonas [Namibia] defeated Thomas Blumenfeld [Canada] 5-0;
Men’s 91 kg Final Bout: David Nyaka [New Zealand] defeated Jason Whateley [Australia] 5-0;
Women’s 57 kg Final Bout: Skye Nicholson [Australia] defeated Michaela Walsh [Northern Ireland] 3-2;
Women’s 69 kg Final Bout: Sandy Ryan [England] defeated Rosie Eccles [Wales] 3-2;
Women’s 75 kg Final Bout: Lauren Price [Wales] defeated Caitlin Parker [Australia] 4-1;
Men’s 56 kg Final Bout: Peter McGrail [England] defeated Kurt Walker [Northern Ireland] 4-1;
Men’s 69 kg Final Bout: Pat McCormack [England] defeated Aiden Walsh [Northern Ireland] 5-0;
Men’s 75 kg Final Bout: Vikas Krishan [India] defeated Dieudonne Wilfried Seyintsengue [Cameroon] 5-0;
Men’s 81 kg Final Bout: Sammy Lee [Wales] defeated Ato Plodzicki-Floagali [Samoa] 5-0;
Men’s +91 kg Final Bout: Frazer Clarke [England] defeated Satish Kumar [India] 5-0;
Cycling, Road Races
Starting and finishing at the stunning Currumbin Beachfront, today’s Cycling Road Races took cycling action to the streets once again, and it turned out to be a beautiful omen for the Australian cyclists.
It would prove to be another brilliant day on the bikes for our Australian riders in both vents. Although, as the winner of the women’s event noted, “I wish all six girls could have it [gold] on their CV. Road cycling is such a cruel sport in that sense, and I wouldn’t have won today without those girls, and I’m so grateful”,
Anyway, we’ll take the victories, as recorded below, for both our Men and Women on this occasion
Women’s Road Race
There were 48 starters, of whom 33 managed to finish the course.
GOLD: Chloe Hosking [Australia] 3.02.18, won the race in a group sprint to the finish, hence the same times given to the first five finishers; Silver: Georgia Williams [New Zealand] 3.02.18; Bronze: Danielle Rowe [Wales]. Australia’s other competitors, who assisted in Chloe’s win as a team, were Sarah Roy finished 5th [3.02.18], Tiffany Cromwell was 6th in 3.02.21; Katrin Garfoot, 13th, in 3.02.47.; Gracie Elvin, 22nd in 3.03.32; and Shannon Malseed, 24th in 3.05.40
Chloe was apparently told seven months ago that she wasn’t good enough to represent Australia at theworld championships. She is only the fourth Australian woman to have won the road race
Men’s Road Race
Another inspirational ride by an Australian cyclist to pick up the double Gold this morning, another tight sprint finish, so typical of these long distance bike races. There were 50 competitors who completed the course, of the 115 cyclists who actually began the race, a massive drop-out rate.
GOLD: Steele Von Hoff [Australia] 3.57.01; Silver: Jonathan Mould [Wales] 3.57.01; Bronze: Clint Hendriks [South Africa] 3.57.01. Australia’s other competitors and team members were Cameron Meyer, 9th [3.57.01], Mathew Hayman, 25th [3.58.07], Mitchell Docker, 43rd [3.59.39]; Alexander Edmondson, 46th, [4.06.36]. Callum Scotson, 47th [4.06.36], This was an especially courageous win for Steel, who won it just seven weeks after breaking six vertebrae in his neck and back.
Diving
Two medal events to complete the diving competition, which again saw medal successes to the Australian divers, shared over the two events, with Maddison Keeney so close to the winning score in her event.
Women’s 3 Metre Springboard Final
GOLD: Jennifer Abel [Canada] 366.95; Silver: Maddison Keeney [Australia] 366.55; Bronze: Annabelle Smith [Australia] 336.90. Australia’s Esther Qin who had qualified in first place for the final, finished in 5th position with 294.60.
Men’s 10 Metre Platform Final
We saw winning dives in this event to Dominic Bedggood in this final event of the competition.
GOLD: Dominic Bedggood [Australia] 451.15; Silver: Matthew Dixon [England] 449.55; Bronze: Vincent Riendieu [Canada] 425.40. Australia’s Declan Stacey finished 7th with 393.20, and Matthew Barnard, was 10th, 350.35
Hockey
Well I guess Australian hocley enthusiasts would have been anticipating two Gold Medals today, but certainly in the women’s event, our neighbours across the ditch had different ideas, with a New Zealand team dominant for much of the match for Gold and Silver against the Hockeyroos.
Women’s Bronze Medal Match: England defeated India 6-0;
Women’s GOLD Medal Match: New Zealand defeated Australia 4-1 [Halftime 1-0]
In the men’s competition, the Kookaburras were able to reverse that result with a convincing win in this evening’s Gold Medal match. Quarter by quarter scores in that game were: Australia/New Zealand: 0-0; 2-0,2-0,2-0
Men’s Bronze Medal Match: England defeated India 2-1;
Men’s GOLD Medal Match: Australia defeated New Zealand 2-0
This men’s match was the last game for Australian captain, Mark Knowles [the Australian flag-bearer at the Opening Ceremony], after an admirable career with the Kookaburras. He commented before the game, that he didn’t want a win for himself [in his last game before retirement] but for those team members who had not experienced such a win. This win would be Australia’s 6th successive Gold Medal in the Commonwealth Games Men’s Hocky competition.
Netball
There were the two semi-final matches played today, which included a dramatic last second win by England over Jamaica [the expected finalists] and followed by emotional scenes of joy by the English team members and supporters. Today’s results wrre:
Women’s Semi-final Match: England defeated Jamaica 5-55;
Women’s Semi-final Match: Australia defeated New Zealand 65-44.
Rugby Sevens
Preliminary matches continued throughout the day, with the Australian teams having a share of successs.
Men: Pool A: Scotland defeated PNG 27-0; South Africa defeated Malaysia 43-0; Scotland defeated Malaysia 41-0; South Africa defeated PNG 52-0; PNG defeated Malaysia 31-5; South Africa defeated Scotland 2-5;
Men: Pool B: Australia defeated Samoa 24-7; England defeated Jamaica 38-5; Australia defeated Jamaica 32-5; England defeated Samoa 32-0; Damoa defeated Jamaica 36-7;
Men, Pool C: Kenya defeated Canada 26-10; New Zealand defeated Zambia 54-0; Canada defeated Zambia 47-0; New Zealand defeated Kenya 40-7; Kenya defeated Zambia 47-0; New Zealand defeated Canada 33-7;
Men Pool D: Wales defeated Uganda 31-5; Fiji defeated Sri Lanka 53-5; Wales defeated Sri Lanka 42-12; Fiji defeated Uganda 53-0; Uganda defeated Sri Lanka 33-10; Fiji defeated Wales 21-17;
Women’s Pool A: Kenya defeated South Africa 19-10; New Zealand defeated Canada 24-7;
Women’s Pool B: England defeated Wales 45-0; Australia defeated Fiji 17-10
Shooting
Three finals held to end the shooting competition today, with one minor medal going to an Aussie shooter.
Queen’s Prize Individual Finals Day 3 [GR: 401.42v]
GOLD: David Luckman [England] 404.49v; Silver: Jim Bailey [Australia]403.50v; Bronze: Patag Patel [England] 403.45v. Australia’s Ben Emms finished in 9th position with 399.48v;
Men’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions Final
GOLD: Sanjeev Rajput [India] 454.5 [GR]; Silver: Grzegorz Sych [Canada] 448.4; Bronze: Dean Bale [England] 441.2. Australia’s Dane Sampson finished in 7th position on 397.1. William Godwood, in the preliminary round, finished in 12th position, and did not proceed to the final.
Men’s Trap Finals
GOLD: Michael Wixey [Wales] 46; Silver: Aaron Heading [England] 43; Bronze: Brian Galea [Malta] 36. Australia’s Michael Iles-Crevatin finished in 5th position on a score of 22.
Squash
Today’s finals saw a Gold medal winning Australian duo in the Mixed Doubles competition, a wonderful effort. Today’s results were as follows, with two other Australian pairs in line for medal matches tomorrow
Men’s Doubles Semi-finals:
England [1] defeated England [2] 2-1; Australia [Zac Alexander & David Palmer] defeated Scotland 2-0 [11-8,11-5];
Women’s Doubles semi-finals:
India defeated England 2-0; New Zealand defeated Australia [Rachael Grinham & Donna Urquhart] 2-0 [11-9,11-5];
Mixed Doubles Bronze Medak Match
New Zealand [Joelle King & Paul Coll] defeated England [Alison Waters & Daryl Selby] 2-0 [11-6,11-6];
Mixed Doubles Gold Medal Match:
AUSTRALIA [Donna Urquhart & Cameron Pilley] defeated India [Dipika Pallikal Karthik & Saurav Ghosal] 2-0 [11-8,11-10]
Table Tennis
Mixed Doubles Semi-finals: Singapore defeated India[1] 3-2; and, England defeated India [2] 3-2;
Women’s Singles Semi-finals: Manika Batra [India] defeated Tianwei Feng [Singapore] 4-3; and Mengyu Yu [Singapore] defeated Mo Zhang [Canada] 4-1;
Women’s Singles Bronze Medal Match
Tianwei Feng [Singapore] defeated Mo Zhang [Canada] 4-2 [11-2,11-7,5-11,8-11,11-7,11-3]
Women’s Singles Gold Medal Match
Mamika Batra [India] defeated Mengyu Yu [Singapore] 4-0 [11-7,11-6,11-2,11-7]
Women’s TT 6-19\0 {para] Singles Bronze Medal Match:
Andrea McDonnell [Australia] defeated Felicity Pickard [England] 3-0 [11-2,11-6,11-3];
Women’s TT 6-10 [Para] Singles Gold Medal Match:
Melissa Tapper [Australia] defeated Faith Obazuaye [Nigeria] 3-1 [7-1,11-2,11-6,11-3];
Men’s TT 6-10 [Para] Singles Bronze Medal Match
Joshua Stacey [Wales] defeated Theo Coghill [South Africa] 3-2;
Men’s TT 6-10 [Para] Singles Gold Medal Match
Ross Wilson [England] defeated Kim Daybell [England] 3-1
Men’s Singles Semi-finals: Quadri Aruna [Nigeria] defeated Sharath Achanta [India] 4-0; and Ning Gao [Singapore] defeated Samuel Walker [England] 4-0’
Men’s Doubles Bronze Medal Match
India [Harmeet Desai & Shanil Sankar Shetty] defeated Singapore [Yew On Koen Pang & Shao Feng Ethan Poh] 3-0 [ 11-5, 11-6,12-10]
Men’s Doubles Gold Medal Match:
England [Paul Drinkhall & Liam Pitchford] defeated India [Sharath Achanta & Sathiyan Gnanasekaran] 3-2 [11-5,12-10,11-9,6-11,8-11]
Wrestling
It was the final day of the Wrestling competition, with one medal event and a number of other preliminary, a couple of which involved Australian wrestlers.
Men’s Freestyle 86 kg 1/8 Final: Mahammad Inam [Pakistan] defeated Jayden Lawrence [Australia] 14-4;
Men’s Freestyle 86 kg Repechage Round 2: Somveer [India] defeated Jayden Lawrence [Australia] 7-0;
Men’s Freestyle, 86 kg Bronze Finals [2]: Syerus Eslami [England] defeated David Conteh [Sierra Leone] 11-0; and, Somveer [India] defeated Alexander Moore [Canada] 7-3;
Men’s Freestyle 86 kg Gold Final: Muhammad Iman [Pakistan] defeated Melvin Bibo [Nigeria] 6-0
Women’s Freestyle 50 kg Nordic: Jessica McDpnald [Canada] defeated Repinder Kaur [Australia] 10-0; Vinesh Binesh [India] defeated Repinder Kaur [Australia] 10-0; Miesinnei Genesis [Nigeria] defeated Repinder Kaur [Australia] 10-0;
Day 10 of competition, Sunday, 15th April
While it may have been the final day of the Commonwealth Games, there was still plenty of action before the Cllosing Ceremony. There were17 gold medals up for grabs across seven sports on the last day of the GC2018 competition – Athletics: 4 | Badminton: 5 | Basketball: 1 | Netball: 1 | Rugby Sevens: 2 | Squash: 2 | Table Tennis: 2
The Marathon, Basketball, Netball and Rugby Sevens taking centre stage. In the Netball, the final will see England take on Australia, after that winning goal in the final second of a thrilling semi-final against Jamaica yesterday.
Sunday’s men’s T54 Marathon was to be the final time GC2018 Ambassador Kurt Fearnley will compete in the green and gold and on home soil.
Athletics
Men’s T54 [Para] Marathon Final
Our inspirational wheelchair bound athlete, Kurt Fearnley clearly led this race for its duration, it being his last run in the ‘green and gold’ colours for Australia. The race [which began with nine competitors] for the two minor medals was between three runners, also for a large part of the race, which sadly one of them was going to miss out on a medal – the closeness of their race indicated by the fact that the time for 2nd to 4th was recorded at the same time.
GOLD: Kurt Fearnley [Australia] 1.30.26 [Games Record]
Silver: John Smith [England] 1.31.44; Silver: Simon Lawson [England] 1.31.44; 4rh: Tristan Smyth [Canada] 1.31.44. Australia’s Jake Lappin finished in 6th 1.37.34.
Women’s T54 [Para] Marathon Final
Completing the ‘golden’ start to a early Sunday morning [the men’s T54 event had begun at 6am on the Gold Coast], our women para athletes in the Marathon completed the Quinella in this event, which began a short time after the men’s event, which only had the 7 starters, including the two Australians.
GOLD: Madison de Rozario [Australia] 1.44.00; Silver: Eliza Ault-Connell [Australia] 1.44.13; Bronze: Jade Jones [England] 1.44.20.
Women’s Marathon Final [WR: 2.17.01; GR: Lisa Martin, Australia: 2.25.28]
There were three Australian girls in this event of 17 competitors – Lisa Weightman, Jessica Trengove and Virginia Maloney.
GOLD: Helalia Johannes [Namibia] 2.32.40; Silver: Lisa Weightman [Australia] 2.33.23; Bronze: Jessica Trengove [Australia] 2.34.09. Australia’s Virginia Maloney finished in 16th position in 2.58.54.
Lisa Weightman – ‘I can’t be disappointed, I came here to win gold, but I got silver, I’m very happy’ [and exhausted, as she came over the line] – ‘can’t be sad about a silver medal.
Men’s Marathon Final [WR: 2.02.57; GR: 2.09.12]
The Men’s Marathon saw a perhaps unexpected win to one of our Australian competitors, which for the morning’s efforts over the four marathons gave Australia a very encouraging haul of 2 Gold, 2 Silver and 1 Bronze. There were 24 starters for the race, of whom 7 did not complete the course..
Mind you, the win in this final event came at a considerable cost to one of the Scottish runners. Callum Hawkins had a clear lead in the marathon with just a few kilometres to go – when he obviously appeared to be struggling, before collapsing on the roadside. He would get up after a minute or so, and struggle onwards, though clearly unsteady and staggering from time to time. I must admit that scene when he fell a second time , virtually into the fence barrier before collapsing onto the roadside again, left us viewers feeling quite distressed [not just the commentators and crowd at the scene and end of the race, as all this was being projected onto the main screens there – and distressing for his family and friends watching in Scotland – particularly so because it would be almost 5 minutes if not more, before any kind of assistance, let alone medical assistance was offered to him. I understand that under the rules that if help was offered he would automatically be considered out of the race, and presumably he was conscious enough to refuse any offers of help. However, I was personally offended to see spectators leaning over the fence to take photos on their phones!! Irrespective of the rules, and judging by the state he was in [unable to stand up for example] I felt that any decision about receiving assistance should have been taken out of his hands, and provided much more quickly than it eventually was.
Nevertheless, the marathon continued, and eventuated in a Gold medal to the Australian who had been some distance behind Hawkins when he collapsed.
GOLD: Michael Shelley [Australia] 2.16.46; Silver: Munyo Solomon Mutai [Uganda] 2.19.02; Bronze: 2.19.36. Australia’s Liam Adams finished in 5th position [2.21.08].
Badminton
Mixed Doubles Gold Medal Match
Gabrielle & Chris Adcock [England] defeated Marcus Ellis and Lauren Smith {England] 2-1 [19-21,21-17,21-16]
Women’s Singles Gold Medal Match
Saina Newell [India] defeated Venkarta Pursala [India] 2-0 [21-18,23-21]
Men’s Singles Gold Medal Match
Chong Wei Lee [Malaysia] defeated Srikanth Kidambi [India] 2-1 [19-21,21-14,21-14]
Women’s Doubles Gold Medal Match
Mei Kuan Chow & Vivian Hoo [Malaysia] defeated Lauren Smith & Sarah Walker [England] 2-0 [21-12,21-12]
Men’s Doubles Gold Medal Match
Marcus Ellis & Chris Langridge [England] defeated Satwik Rankreddy & Chirag Chandrashekhar Shetty [India] 2-0 [21-13,21-16].
Basketball
A success in the Basketball competition for Australia’s team – the ‘Boomers’, following on from the women’s team victory last night, and much savoured by supporters. This would make up for a couple of ‘team’ defeats later in the afternoon. Prior to the match, the team felt that ‘Australia’s date with destiny had arrived’.
Men’s Bronze Medal Game
New Zealand defeated Scotland 79-69
Men’s Gold Medal Game
Australia defeated Canada 87-47
Despite the loss, Canada are essentially a young team, and their performance throughout the tournament showed potential of future success. Their score today was their lowest for the competition.
The quarter by quarter scores in this match were [Australia/Canada] – 20-10, 45-19, 63-29, 87-47]
Netball
The Australian ‘Diamonds’ netball team went into today’s gold medal match as red hot favourites. Yesterday, England had ‘scraped’ into the final after a thrilling one point win semi-final win, and really had nothing to lose in this game. England had never played in a Commonwealth Games Gold medal match, and were really not expected to win today. But nobody counted on the value of team’s enthusiasm and ‘never lie down’ attitude.. As with their victory on the final siren yesterday, England would win the Gold Medal match with a penalty shot at goal as the final second ticked over to end the match. Unlike last night’s losing Canadian team in the Women’s basketball final [who seemed quite happy with their Silver medal] I think the Diamonds were as excited about that fact today]as a very disappointed team left the court prior to the medal ceremonies. As for the English, who could begrudge their spectacular performances over the past week or so.
Women’s Bronze Medal Match
Jamaica defeated New Zealand 60-55
Women’s Gold Medal Match
England defeated Australia 52-51………………As the quarter by quarter scores indicate, there was very little between the two teams throughout the game, and whenever Australia got away to a lad of 3-4 points, the English ‘Roses’ came back at them. England/Australia: 13-14, 25-25, 36-38, 52-51
Rugby Sevens
This was yet another disappointing team loss for Australian women, and while a win could not have been considered a clear outcome, the Australian girls, following their Gold medal at the Rio Olympics in 2016, could have been considered favourites.
The Gold medal match was forced into extra time through an unusual and inexplicable error of judgement by one of the Australian players, when the Aussies had control of the ball at the end of the match with scores level, when she kicked the ball into touch [presumably wrongly thinking that Australia was in front]. In any case, that caused extra time to be played, with a sudden death outcome – first score wins the match, which New Zealand managed to achieve,
There were numerous errors by both teams in that extra time, sadly for the Aussies, they made one too many. The results of today’s final matches were as follows.
Women’s Placings 5-8: Fiji defeated South Africa 40-12; Kenya defeated Wales 14-12;
Men’s Placings 5-8: Australia defeated Kenya 33-5; Scotland defeated Wales 19-12;
Women’s Semi-finals: Australia defeated 33-7; New Zealand defeated England 26-5;
Men’s Semi-finals: New Zealand defeated England 17-12; and, Fiji defeated South Africa 24-19;
Women’s Placing 7-8: Wales defeated South Africa 17-14;
Women’s Placing 5-6; Fiji dfeated Kenya 40-5;
Men’s Placing 7-8: Wales defeated Kenya 28-24;
Men’s Placing 5-6; Australia defeated Scotland 26-0
Women’s Bronze Medal Match: England defeated Canada 24-19
Men’s Bronze Medal Match: England defeated South Africa 21-14
Women’s Gold Medal Match: Australia vs New Zealand defeated Australia 17.12 [leading 12-0 at half-time, and 12-12 at normal full-time]
Men’s Gold Medal Match: New Zealand defeated Fiji 14-0
Squash
Final day of the Squash – and a women’s Bronze medal, and a men’s Gold in the doubles finals
Women’s Doubles Bronze Medal Match:
Australia [Rachael Grinham & Donna Urquhart] defeated [England] Laura Massaro & Sarah-Jane Perry] 2-0 [11-6,11-8]
Women’ Doubles GOLD Medal Match:
New Zealand [Joelle King & Amanda Sanders-Murphy] defeated India [Joshna Chinappa & Dipija Pallikal Karthik] 2-0 [ 11-9,11-8]
Men’s Doubles Bronze Medal Match:
England [Declan James & James Willstrop] defeated Alan Clyne & Greg Lobbab [Scotland] 2-0 [11-9,11-9];
Men’s GOLD Medal Match:
Australia [Zac Alexander & David Palmer] defeated England [Darryl Selby & Adrian Waller] 2-1 [11-9,3-11,11-6].
Table Tennis
The Mixed Doubles, and Men’s Singles finals completed the table tennis competition today.
Mixed Doubles Bronze Medal Match
Sathiyan Gnanasekaran & Manika Batra [India] defeated Charath Ashanta & Mourna Das [India] 3-0 [11-6,11-2,11-4];
Mixed Doubles Gold Medal Match:
Ning Gao & Mengyu Yu [Singapore] defeated Liam Pitchford & Tin-Tin Ho [England] 3-0 [12-10,12-10,11-9]
Men’s Singles Bronze Medal Match
Sharath Achanta [India] defeated Samuel Walker [England] 4-1 [11-7,11-9,9-11-6,12-10]
Men’s Singles Gold Medal Match
Ning Gao [Singapore] defeat Quadri Aruna [Nigeria] 4-2 [ 11-7,11-8,5-11,3-11,11-9,11-5]
And that is it: all that is to follow is the Closing Ceremony [which turned out to be a disappointment, even to the TV network], but I might leave that to others to summarise! [other than that it was great that Archie Roach performed!!]!
Except, maybe a brief look at the final medal tally of the top five countries – I haven’t referred to the medal tally very much throughout this project, although the media [and the TV commentary] continue to place far too much emphasise on that aspect – to myself, the important aspect is the individual and team performances throughout the Games, and while I have concentrated, without apology, on reporting from an Australian point of view, I have tried to compile results from all participating athletes, especially in relation to ‘Finals’.
As for the Medal Tally [top 10 countries, with apologies to those below 10]
GOLD: SILVER: BRONZE: [TOTAL]]
AUSTRALIA: 80 59 59 198
ENGLAND 45 45 46 136
INDIA 26 20 20 66
CANADA 15 40 27 82
NEW ZEALAND 15 16 15 46
SOUTH AFRICA 13 11 13 37
WALES 10 12 14 36
SCOTLAND 9 13 22 44
NIGERIA 9 9 6 24
CYPRUS 8 1 5 14
The Following countries also won Gold Medals – Jamaica 7; Malaysia 7; Singapore 5; Kenya 4; Uganda, Botswana [3 each]; Samoa, Trinidad & Tobago, Namibia [2 each]; The Bahamas, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Pakistan, Grenada, Bermuda, Guyuna, British Virgin Islands, Saint Lucia [ 1 each]
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Site Title 