Aimee Willmott and James Wilby lead the way in the pool with golden performances while England men’s gymnasts make it back-to-back team titles.
The nearly woman of British swimming for so long, England’s Aimee Willmott broke her golden duck in style as she edged out defending champion Hannah Miley of Scotland.
The women’s 400m IM was the first final in the pool and Willmott and long-time rival Miley served up a thriller of a race.
But where almost without fail, Miley has emerged on top in their battles, this time Willmott surged through on the final 50m to claim victory in 3:34.90 and upgrade the silver medal she won in Glasgow four years ago. England teammate Abbie Wood finished sixth.
“After the 12 months I’ve had with two broken ribs, a bashed elbow and knee surgery it was just a huge sigh of relief to get here. To just do the business is incredible,” said Willmott, who now trains up in Stirling.
“The setbacks were really bad to the point where me and my parents couldn’t even have a conversation because I was just so stressed and I didn’t know what I was doing.
“I’ve learned a lot, gained a lot of confidence and got the enjoyment back. I’d lost that a little bit before.” Later in the evening, it was the turn of James Wilby to cause an upset as he timed his finish to perfection to edge out Scotland's Ross Murdoch in the men's 200m breaststroke. Wilby was seventh at the halfway stage, third going into the final 50m and then powered home in a time of 2:08.05.
Meanwhile it was one race of seven down for James Guy and one medal already in the bag as he clung on for bronze in the 400m freestyle – the same colour medal also picked up by England’s Siobhan-Marie O’Connor, Freya Anderson, Anna Hopkin and Eleanor Faulkner in the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay.
There was no sign of the pressure getting to England men’s gymnasts as they successfully defended the team title they clinched in Glasgow four years ago.
Boasting double Olympic champion Max Whitlock and Rio 2016 high bar bronze medallist Nile Wilson among their ranks as well as Courtney Tulloch, James Hall and Dominick Cunningham, England finished on 258 points, ten clear of second-placed Canada with Scotland in third while Wales finished seventh.
Wilson, winner of high bar gold, parallel bars silver and all-around bronze in Glasgow, was one of England’s most consistent performers, topping all-around qualifying and will also go in four individual apparatus finals - the floor, rings, horizontal bars and high bar, qualifying number one in the latter two apparatus too.
“That’s some of the best gymnastics I’ve ever done out there and I don’t think I’ve ever had that much fun in competition either,” he said.
“To come out on top in the all-around qualifying is just peachy and hopefully it’s just the start of what could be a really memorable Games for me.
“The team event was the focus and we did our job. Everyone was hanging that medal around our necks but we knew we had to focus, no-one was going to give it to us.”
On the track, the men’s team pursuit team have made a habit out of impressing beyond their years and it took a world record-breaking performance to beat them to gold on the Gold Coast. That came from Australia, stopping the clock in 3:49.804 but the English quartet of Kian Emadi, Ethan Hayter, Oliver Wood and Charlie Tanfield were not to leave empty-handed as silver came their way. "I'm not disappointed with that. Australia was the one to beat. They got a world record,” said Emadi. "We went out conservatively in the trial and hard in the race. Australia were too good. But we will take many positives out of it."
Silver was the order of the day for the male team sprinters too, Ryan Owens, Philip Hindes and Joe Truman holding New Zealand to the very end before settling for second place. Indeed the Kiwis had recorded a Games record in their qualifier with the English trio impressive in taking second for the gold-medal race in a time of 43.516s. And a third English medal came on the track thanks to Katy Marchant and Lauren Bate, victorious in their own Battle of Britain having come from behind after 250m. Wales’ Rachel James and Eleanor Coster were the unfortunate pair to miss out on a medal.
Day one of the Commonwealth Games began with double medal success for the home nations as first Jessica Learmonth won silver for England before Marc Austin followed up with bronze for Scotland in the men’s race. Click here to read more
Boxer Luke McCormack fired a warning to his rivals with a dominant opening victory against Uganda’s Kavuma Ssemujju, although there was defeat for Wales Williams Edwards at the same round of 32 stage of the 64kg competition. Scotland’s Stephen Newns also lost out to Tonga’s John Moleni in the 69kg round of 32.
Nick Matthew and James Willstrop both progressed into the round of 16 of the men’s squash singles with fellow English players Laura Massaro and Sarah-Jane Perry and Wales’ Tesni Evans doing likewise in the women’s singles.
On the basketball court, Scotland took bragging rights over England with an entertaining 78-65 opening Pool B win. The Scots had been ahead by just one point heading into the last quarter and finished the stronger to the win, with Gareth Murray topscoring on 18 points.
Wales men’s hockey team held Pakistan to a 1-1 draw, carrying on the strong start made by the women’s team in defeating India in the morning, while Scotland men's team beat South Africa 4-2.
Northern Ireland netball lost their opening match to Australia although Scotland’s badminton players made it two wins from two on day one as they overcame Sri Lanka, with England comfortably defeating Uganda.
The table tennis team competitions got up and running with England two from two in both the men’s and women’s events while the lawn bowls preliminary rounds continued at pace, despite the wet weather.
The podium places will be decided at similar sports to day one with medals up for grabs in cycling, gymnastics, swimming and weightlifting.
After the men on Thursday, attention switches to the women at the gymnastics with England, Scotland and Wales all bidding for team success.
Winner of individual sprint bronze at Rio, English cyclist Katy Marchant will bid for another major podium finish, although she will have to overcome the challenge of Australia’s Stephanie Morton. Scotland's Katie Archibald will compete against England's Ellie Dickinson and Emily Nelson in the individual pursuit. In the pool, James Guy, Calum Jarvis and Duncan Scott will go in the 200m freestyle while Joe Litchfield will go for glory in the 400m individual medley and it is set to be a battle for top honours in the men's 4x100m freestyle relay.
Sportsbeat 2018