Key events
Athletics: Christine Mboma of Namibia, the Olympic silver medalist, wins the first heat of the women’s 200m in 23.20. She’ll fancy herself here, given Shericka Jackson, the world champ, has withdrawn, and Elaine Thompson-Herah, though she won the 100m last evening, isn’t in her best form.
Cycling: “It’s called the race of truth,” says Hayley Simmonds of the road race time trial – and she should know, having taken bronze in 2018. “In the end it’s just you and the pain in your legs and the thoughts in your head,” she surmises quite beautifully.
Netball: Jamaica beat Australia 57-55! That was a a great match, and what a performance from the Sunshine Girls! In the semis, they’ll meet whoever loses the evening match, between England and New Zealandn; all four have what it takes to win gold.
Athletics: Lindon Victor of Grenanda, the defending champin the decathlon, finished fifth in Oregon, but he nails his 100m here, running a faster time than he did there – 10.76. But Australia’s Cedric Dubler, his main rival, comes second and is well in touch after one event.
Netball: Hello! Jamaica have pulled it back, and with three minutes left in Q4 lead Australia 53-52!
Hockey: South Africa have stabilised, but still trail NZ 3-0 and we’ve got 11.30 left in Q4.
Let’s have some Commonwealth music, for I cannot stop listening to this – from Ghana, and King Promise’s new album.
Jeanette Kwakye is on BBC talking about last night. You could tell how much she loved it, and we cut to see Liz and Eilish enjoying the moment, again. Great stuff.
Cycling: The women’s time trial is away.
Netball: Australia have stretched away. At the end of Q3, the Diamonds lead 46-40.
Athletics: In this sesh, we’ve got the first three disciplines of the men’s decathlon which are – no cheating – the 100m, the long jump and the shot. We’ll also see the 200m heats for both men and women, so yes, we’ll get some Fast Elaine action, plus round 1 of the men’s 1500m women’s hammer qualifying and women’s high jump qualifying.
The cycling, then: the way it works is that each rider sets off on their bill – the men go for 37km, the women 29km – and whoever records the fastest time wins. Easy.
Netball: It’s still tight as, Australia leading Jamaica 34-32 with 10.30 left in Q3. It’s a terrific contest – get the telly on if you can.
At 10am BST – so in 13 minutes from now – we start both the cycling time trials and the athletics. Not bad.
This has absolutely nothing to do with the Commonwealth Games, but it’s just too brilliant not to share.
Women’s hockey: NZ lead South Africa 3-0 with three to go in Q2; the look near-certs to move into the last four with Australia while, from the other pool, India and England are in control.
Netball: Australia lead Jamaica 15-13 at the start of Q2; whoever wins this wins the pool, with New Zealand and England waiting in the semis. Those two meet this evening, again to determine first and second place.
On the main BBC channel, we’re watching Canada’s Ryan Bester play Wales’ Daniel Salmon in the sectional bit of the men’s bowls. You may remember Salmon from Tuesday – he won gold in the pairs – but he’s just been nailed 21-10. He’s got another game later on, though, so all is not lost.
Preamble
Morning all and welcome to day seven of the Commonwealth Games!
I’ll level with you: I’m not even close to recovered from yesterday. Granted, Eilish McColgan celebrating gold with Liz is prime eyeball-sweating fodder for the middle-aged, but even if we ignore that aspect, the last 500m of that women’s 10,000 – the look on McColgan’s coupon, the pain she overcame, the way she dredged up that finish from the depths of her soul – was the absolute heigh of sport. “The race I always knew she had in her,” said her mum, eyes moist with naches. Just absolutely beautiful.
But today – ready or not, here it comes. We begin with the time trials of the men and women’s road races – Geraint Thomas, fresh off his Tour de France third-place, is in that – and also have some morning athletics, most particularly the start of the decathlon, then tonight we’ll enjoy the final of the men’s 110m hurdles and women’s steeplechase among other things.
In the water, the swimming meet might be over but the diving is just getting going – Jack Laugher goes in the 1m springboard – and we’ve also got England v New Zealand in the cricket, winners to top the pool, just as we do in the netball. So stick with us as we coax you through it all!
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