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8 hours ago
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Key events
Athletics: The men are racing the three 400m semi-finals at the moment. So far Samuel Ogazi (🇳🇬 NGR), Lee Bhekempilo Eppie (🇧🇼 BOT), Thomas Reynolds (🇳🇿 NZL) and Muzala Samukonga (🇿🇲 ZAM) have booked their spots in the final.
Cycling: It must be nice having things named after you while you are still around to see it, and over at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome the men’s team sprint qualifying has closed the morning session. Australia were fastest, and will race England later for gold. The bronze medal will be contested between Trinidad & Tobago and Wales.
Athletics: While I have been pondering whether you can call something “semi-finals” if there are three of them, I ought to give you the results of the Women’s 400m. The six automatic qualifiers are:
Semi-final 1: Yemi Mary John (🏴 ENG) – 51.67
Semi-final 1: Obakeng Kamberuka (🇧🇼 BOT) – 52.10
Semi-final 2: Dejanea Oakley (🇯🇲 JAM) – 51.18
Semi-final 2: Sada Williams (🇧🇧 BAR) – 51.85
Semi-final 3: Ella Onojuvwevwo (🇳🇬 NGR) – 51.47
Semi-final 3: Charlotte Henrich (🏴 WAL) – 52.13
By my reckoning Scotland’s Nicole Yeargin (51.98) and Canada’s Lauren Gale (52.05) also qualify as the fastest women outside the top two across all the heats. But don’t quote me on that, because it hasn’t been confirmed on the website yet.
Cycling: Wales will face England for gold, while Australia and Scotland will face off for bronze in the Women’s team sprint. The four squads could only be separated 0.646 of a second. Those races will be at 18.10 BST later today.
Cycling: Wales have just set a new Commonwealth Games record in the Women’s team sprint qualifying at 46.972. England and Australia are still to race.
Men’s decathlon: The next event in the decathlon is the shot put, which should start in about ten minutes time. After two events, the standings are:
1. Damian Warner (🇨🇦 CAN) – 2046
2. Sammy Ball (🏴 ENG) – 1893
3. Tejaswin Shankar (🇮🇳 IND) – 1885
4. Callum Newby (🏴SCO) – 1837
5. Lindon Victor (🇬🇩 GRN) – 1828
Netball: Uganda have beaten Scotland in the netball, 65-56.
Women’s 1500m T54 final to be re-run
A bit of breaking news in that the Women’s 1500m T54 final is to be re-run tomorrow. It was marred by a controversial crash. It means that Melanie Woods (🏴SCO) who claimed gold has to do it all again.
Martin Belam
Hi everyone, good afternoon (or evening or morning, depending etc). Netball! Cycling! Athletics! Bowls! It is all happening on my shift today. Although Scotland might be wishing the netball wasn’t happening as the hosts are 54-41 down to Uganda in the fourth quarter. P.S. do my quiz!
It’s time for Martin Belam to run the show.
Fiji’s Taniela Rainibogi win's men's 110kg weightlifting gold
Fiji’s Taniela Rainibogi is going to wear gold: he backs up his dominant display in the snatch with a clean-and-jerk lift of 208kg. That brings him to a total of 378kg, and he finishes four kilos ahead of England’s Cyrille Tchatchet II. Samoa’s Jack Opeloge, making a dash for bronze by trying to lift a monstrous 210kg, has a nasty fall with his second attempt – and doesn’t fare much better with his third. Canada’s Xavier Lusignan takes third.
Netball: It’s the end of the pool stage, with Uganda and Scotland locked in battle. Uganda are up 36-22 at the halfway mark – the victors are set to play in the 5th-6th playoff.
Track cycling: England are up in qualifying for the men’s 4000m team pursuit, and they’ve recorded a time of 3:50.892, quicker than Wales and Scotland. Australia and New Zealand are still to come – the two fastest nations will compete for gold.
Weightlifting: In the men’s 110kg final, England’s Cyrille Tchatchet II has delivered the biggest lift of the snatch section, pulling off a Games-record lift of 166kg … scrap that, Fiji’s Taniela Rainibogi has just lifted 170kg.
Tchatchet has a remarkable story to tell:
Track cycling: It’s a hypnotic watch as we head to qualifying for the women’s 4000m team pursuit. There are five teams – Kenya, Wales, England, Australia and New Zealand – setting their times, with the two fastest to take on each other in the gold final. Australia are the defending champions.
Catch up on yesterday’s action:
Para track cycling: To the velodrome, for qualifying in the women’s tandem B sprint. There are six pairs in action, with the four fastest advancing to the semi-finals. England’s Elizabeth Jordan – an Olympic champion – with Sylvia Misztal as pilot, finishes at the top of the pile with a time of 10.87sec.
Preamble
We go again, with 17 golds on the table today. We’ve got medal events in weightlifting, track cycling and athletics, and we’ll dip our toes in some netball and bowls, too. But we’ll struggle to find a story as extraordinary as this one:
Fourteen years ago, Ngake fled the London 2012 Olympic village after finishing sixth in her competition and ended up sleeping rough for a month.
The reason? She was competing for Cameroon, where homosexuality is illegal, and someone in the team had found out that she was a lesbian. And so began a journey that led to Ngake giving up elite sport for more than a decade, deciding to come back in 2023, and then transferring allegiances to Britain a year later.
