GOLD COAST, Australia (Reuters) – Highlights on day one of the Commonwealth Games on Thursday(times in GMT):
1013 CANADA’S RUCK SETS GAMES RECORD IN 200M FREESTYLE SWIMMING FINAL
Canada’s Taylor Ruck finished ahead of Australia’s Ariarne Titmus and Emma McKeon to claim the women’s 200m freestyle gold in a time of one minute and 54.81 seconds. The 17-year-old bettered McKeon’s Games record of one minute and 55.57 seconds set four years ago.
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0952 HOME FAVORITE HORTON SEALS FREESTYLE SWIMMING GOLD
Australian Olympic champion Mack Horton won the men’s 400m freestyle gold at the Games with compatriot Jack McLoughlin taking silver and England’s James Guy winning the bronze medal.
0950 AUSTRALIA BEAT NEW ZEALAND TO WIN CYCLING GOLD
Hosts Australia won the gold medal at the women’s 4000m team pursuit event as they set a new Games record of 4 minutes and 15.214 seconds to register a dominant win against New Zealand.
Canada clinched bronze after beating England.
0945 ENGLAND’S WILLMOTT EDGES OUT MILEY FOR 400M SWIMMING GOLD
England’s Aimee Willmott beat out rival Hannah Miley, of Scotland, to win the women’s 400m individual medley after blitzing the final 50m to record a time of 4 minutes and 34.90 seconds.
Miley was aiming to be the first Scottish athlete to win gold medals at three consecutive Games after triumphing in 2010 and 2014.
Home favorite Blair Evans clinched the bronze medal with a time of 4 minutes and 38.23 seconds.
0810 GEMILI SPURRED ON BY TOTTENHAM’S KANE
– English sprinter Adam Gemili, the 2014 Glasgow Games 100 meters silver medalist, revealed he was taken by surprise when Tottenham Hotspur striker Harry Kane visited his training camp in Barcelona last year.
“My coach (Rana Reider) is good friends with (Spurs manager) Mauricio Pochettino and Kane watched some of our session, which included warm-up and drills,” the 24-year-old Gemili, a former semi-professional footballer, told reporters.
“I am big football fan so I was ecstatic. He is probably the best striker in the world at the moment. He was very friendly, keen to learn and asked lots of questions.”
The men’s 100m competitions at the Gold Coast Games begin at Carrara Stadium on Sunday.
0615 RECORD-BREAKING CHANU WINS WEIGHTLIFTING GOLD
India’s Mirabai Chanu won the gold medal in the women’s 48kg weightlifting event while setting a new Games record with a combined total of 196kg and a clean and jerk record of 110kg.
Chanu, who was a silver medalist at Glasgow in 2014, lifted 26kg more than Mauritian Marie Hanitra Roilya Ranaivosoa, who sealed silver, while Sri Lanka’s Dinusha Gomes won the bronze medal.
0540 AUSTRALIA FASTEST IN TEAM PURSUIT QUALIFIERS
Australia wrapped up top spot in the women’s 4,000m team pursuit qualifiers and will take on New Zealand in the gold medal race later on Thursday.
Canada and England will face off for the bronze medal.
0520 BROWNLEE SAYS WASN’T FIT ENOUGH TO CHALLENGE
England’s Jonny Brownlee, the silver medalist in Glasgow in 2014 and at the Rio Olympics, says fitness was a major factor in his seventh-placed finish in the triathlon.
“My first thought was, ‘I wish I was fit’, I would’ve ran with him (winner Henri Schoeman),” Brownlee told reporters. “I couldn’t go with him so I was thinking about the medals, and how I could leave these guys behind.
“When they came past I had given it my all by then.”
0400 SCHOEMAN BAGS TRIATHLON GOLD
– Henri Schoeman wins South Africa’s first ever gold medal in triathlon at the Commonwealth.
– Jacob Birtwhistle claims silver for Australia, while Scot Marc Austin takes bronze.
0305 HOME HOPE PEARSON ANNOUNCES WITHDRAWAL
Australia’s world champion hurdler Sally Pearson has withdrawn from the Games due to an Achilles tendon injury.
The 31-year-old, who previously won gold medals in the 100m hurdles in the 2010 and 2014 Games, had been struggling with the persistent injury in the build-up to the quadrennial competition.
0230 DEFENDING CHAMPION MURDOCH CRUISES INTO FINAL
Scotland’s Ross Murdoch eased into the men’s 200m breaststroke final after cruising through his heat to qualify fastest.
0213 MUHAMMAD AZROY HAZALWA SEALS WEIGHTLIFTING GOLD
Malaysia’s Muhammad Azroy Hazalwafie Izhar Ahmad won gold in the men’s 56kg weightlifting with a total lift of 261kg – a Commonwealth Games record.
India’s Gururaja Poojary finished second while Sri Lanka’s Chaturanga Lakmal won the bronze medal.
0140 BUTTERFLY WORLD CHAMPION PROUD DISQUALIFIED
A slight movement on the blocks cost world 50m butterfly champion Ben Proud a chance to defend his Commonwealth title.
The 23-year-old blitzed his heat, powering away from Chad le Clos by more than a body length, but the scoreboard then showed him as having been disqualified. Television replays showed Proud appearing to move on the blocks.
0110 OLEKSIAK GRIEVING OVER GRANDMOTHER
Canada’s Penny Oleksiak, whose grandmother died on Wednesday, advanced to the women’s 200m freestyle final as competition at the pool began. The Rio Olympics 100m freestyle champion was sixth fastest behind Australia’s Ariarne Titmus.
Scotland’s two-times 400 individual medley champion Hannah Miley was almost a second faster than the rest of the field in qualifying for Thursday’s final, while Rio Olympics champion Mack Horton was the fastest in the men’s 400m freestyle.
0030 DUFFY WINS FIRST GOLD OF GAMES
Bermuda’s Flora Duffy won the first gold medal of the Commonwealth Games, and her country’s first since Auckland in 1990, when she stormed to victory in the women’s triathlon.
The two-time world champion powered away in the run after sticking to England’s Jessica Learmonth in the swim and cycling legs of the race, which was a sprint event rather than over the traditional Olympic distances.
2300 COMPETITION KICKS OFF
The morning after a well-received opening ceremony at Carrara Stadium, artistic gymnastics, badminton and lawn bowls events started in brilliant sunshine with forecast temperature of 28 degrees Celsius.
(Compiled by Ian Ransom, Greg Stutchbury, Aditi Prakash and Shrivathsa Sridhar; Editing by Peter Rutherford, Sudipto Ganguly and Toby Davis)
