Commonwealth Games: Wales win three golds, Adam Peaty & Yohan Blake denied
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Alys Thomas gets first gold in the pool for Wales and games record in the 200m butterfly
2018 Commonwealth Games |
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Venue: Gold Coast, Australia Dates: 4-15 April |
Coverage: Watch live on BBC TV and Red Button with extra streams on Connected TVs, BBC Sport website and app; listen on Radio 5 live; follow text updates online. Times and channels |
Wales won three gold medals on a day English swimmer Adam Peaty was denied his second title of the Commonwealth Games on Australia's Gold Coast.
Swimmer Alys Thomas, Para-athlete Hollie Arnold and Wales' men's bowls pair triumphed on day five of the Games.
But Peaty was narrowly beaten in the men's 50m breaststroke by South African Cameron van der Burgh.
Another favourite - Jamaica's Yohan Blake - stumbled at the start of the 100m, allowing Akani Simbine and Henricho Bruintjies to make it a South African one-two.
The home nations won nine gymnastics medals on day five, with England winning gold through Alice Kinsella and Nile Wilson.
England's James Willstrop won the men's singles squash title but team-mate Sarah-Jane Perry lost the women's final. Wales' Tesni Evans won the women's bronze-medal match.
Elsewhere, injury ruled England's Adam Gemili out of the men's 100m, while team-mate Asha Philip came fourth in the women's 100m, which was won by Trinidad & Tobago's Michelle-Lee Ahye.
Hollie Arnold clinches gold and sets a new world record in F46 javelin
Key moments from day four |
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Shock loss for Peaty
Peaty was runner-up to Van der Burgh in the 50m breaststroke at Glasgow 2014, but the 23-year-old was widely fancied to win it this time after extending his unbeaten record over 100m to four years by winning gold earlier in the Games.
But Van der Burgh, 29, claimed gold in a time of 26.58 seconds as Peaty clocked 26.62. Peaty's team-mate James Wilby was third in 27.37 to claim his third medal of the Games.
"It was a great race. Credit to Van der Burgh," Peaty told BBC Sport. "I've been off my best all week.
"In April I'm never this fast so I'll take it as a positive and move on to the Europeans."
Adam Peaty gets silver in the men's 50m breaststroke
Thomas, who only made her major international debut at last year's World Championships, won Wales' first swimming gold medal of the Games in the women's 200m butterfly.
The 27-year-old swam a Games record of two minutes 5.45 seconds to finish ahead of Australian duo Laura Taylor and Emma McKeon.
"I bet my coach if I did this I could shave his head," Thomas said.
"I'm 27 and this is my first major international medal. I'm finally breaking through now. It says something about being patient when you're young."
Wales team-mate Jazz Carlin, 27, surrendered her 800m freestyle title, finishing sixth as Australian teenager Ariarne Titmus won gold.
England's James Guy, 22, took silver in the men's 100m butterfly final behind South African Chad le Clos, who made it gold in the 50m, 100m and 200m butterfly, and clinched the 16th Commonwealth medal of his career.
Host nation Australia won 15 swimming medals on day five to make it 60 overall in the pool and push their overall total past 100.
Blake stumbles to bronze
Commonwealth Games: Yohan Blake misses out on 100m gold after 'running like a kid'
Simbine, 24, won the men's 100m gold after Blake stumbled out of the blocks.
The Jamaican tried to recover but finished third in 10.19 seconds, behind Bruintjies (10.17) and Simbine (10.03), who claimed his first global title.
Ahye, 25, ran 11.14 in the women's final while Jamaicans Christania Williams (11.21) and Gayon Evans (11.21) took silver and bronze respectively.
England's Philip, 27, just missed out on the medals in 11.28. Both she and Gemili clocked semi-final times that would have earned a medal in their respective finals.
"I came fourth in Glasgow, fourth in Australia, it seems to be my favourite number," Philip told BBC Sport.
"I'm better than this. That's just shocking to be honest, I should have done better than that."
Earlier, Arnold, 23, set a new world record to win the women's F46 javelin gold.
Wilson becomes triple champion
Nile Wilson's routine on the horizontal bars
Wilson, 22, secured the horizontal bar title to win his third gold of the Games while Kinsella, 17, won on the women's beam to finish with three medals.
James Hall tied for second behind Wilson so both he and Canada's Cory Paterson were awarded a silver medal while England's Kelly Simm won beam bronze behind Kinsella.
Latalia Bevan, 17, ensured Wales did not leave the gymnastics arena empty-handed as she won silver on the floor.
Wilson also won parallel bars silver with Scotland's Frank Baines clinching bronze, while Courtney Tulloch claimed vault silver ahead of English team-mate Dominick Cunningham in third.
Wilson said: "I was struggling the last couple of days. I am very, very exhausted right now. It has been amazing and a massive stepping stone for the future. It's been one of the greatest experiences I've ever had.
"I'm just happy to get through the last two days and do amazing gymnastics once again. It's been an amazing week for Team England. We absolutely smashed it."
England finished the artistic gymnastics competition top of the medal table with 16, including six golds.
Alice Kinsella takes gold and Kelly Simm bronze for England on the individual beam final.
More of the day's events
In the bowls, Wales won a surprise gold in the men's pairs final to prevent Alex 'Tattie' Marshall becoming Scotland's most successful Commonwealth Games athlete.
Daniel Salmon and Marc Wyatt beat defending champions Marshall and Paul Foster 12-10 in a tense final. Marshall, 51, could still win a Scottish record fifth gold in the men's fours later in the Games.
Highlights: Wales beat Scotland to win lawn bowls gold
Willstrop won the biggest singles title of his career by beating New Zealand's Paul Coll in the men's squash final.
The 34-year-old, who lost in the Commonwealth singles finals in both 2010 and 2014, won 11-9 11-4 11-6.
Compatriot Sarah-Jane Perry, 27, was beaten by New Zealand's Joelle King in a thrilling women's final, coming from 2-0 down to force a decider, which King won 11-8.
Earlier, Evans beat Malaysia's Nicol David 3-1 to win Wales' first Commonwealth squash medal for 20 years, but Joel Makin failed to add another as he lost 3-2 to Malaysia's Nafiizwan Adnan in the men's bronze-medal match.
Sarah-Jane Perry loses squash final to New Zealand's Joelle King
More action from day five |
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Wales' Ben Llewellin, 23, had to settle for silver in the men's skeet shooting final, despite hitting 56 of his 60 targets.
Cypriot Georgios Achilleos won gold with a Games record of 57 while Northern Ireland's Gareth McAuley, 25, took bronze by hitting 45 out of his 50 targets.
England's badminton mixed team and men's table tennis team both claimed 3-0 victories over Singapore to clinch bronze medals.
Injury forced New Zealand's transgender weightlifter Laurel Hubbard to withdraw halfway through the women's +90kg event, which helped England's Emily Campbell to win bronze, while Owen Boxall also claimed a bronze in the men's -105kg event.
Key action on day six (all times BST)
1:00: Road cycling - men's individual time trial with England's Charlie Tanfield.
5:45: Road cycling - women's individual time trial with Scotland's Katie Archibald.
10:45 Athletics - men's 110m hurdles final with England's Andrew Pozzi the fastest qualifier.
10:45: Swimming - men's 50m freestyle final with England's Ben Proud the fastest qualifier in a Games record.
10:50: Swimming - women's 50m backstroke final with Wales' Georgia Davies the fastest qualifier.
11:27: Athletics - men's T54 1500m final with England's Richard Chiassaro the fastest qualifier in a Games record.
11:40: Athletics - women's hammer final with England's Sophie Hitchon and Carys Parry of Wales.
13:04: Athletics - women's 1500m final with Scotland's Eilish McColgan.
- Published11 April 2018
