by Stuart Weir
This is Stuart Weir’s summary of day six of the athletics schedule for the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
Saturday Summary
Saturday morning started with a women’s high jump, which promised much but delivered little. The first disappointment was the withdrawal of Olympic medalist Nicola Olyslagers (McDermott). The competition was won by Lamara Distin of Jamaica with 1.95m. She commented: “”To come here and win gold is such a great feeling. I just wanted to stay calm, stay focused and get the job done. But this is just the start”. Three athletes cleared 1.92m. World Champion Eleanor Patterson took silver, Kimberly Williamson bronze with Morgan Lake fourth.
Nick Miller, who retained his Commonwealth hammer throw title with 76.43m, commented: “I threw a little further on the Gold Coast but being at home and winning in front of a home crowd is really special.”
Then men’s pole vault was won by Kurtis Marshall, who defended his title from 2018, giving Australia it’s third gold of the day.
The winner of the women’s hammer throw was Camryn Rogers (Canada) 74.08m.
Jacob Kiplimo won the men’s 5000 in a sprint finish with Kenyans Nicolas Kimeli and Jabon Krop. The winner’s time was 13:08.08, with 0.4 seconds separating gold from bronze.
Kyron McMaster (48.93) won the 400m hurdles for the British Virgin Islands. Jaheel Hyde (Jamaica) was second and Alistair Chalmers running for Guernsey, was third. Guernsey is a self-governing British Crown dependency, an island between England and France. It has a population of 62,000 people. In other events, Chalmers competes for Britain. Most unusually for a 400m race, Malik Metivier (Canada) was disqualified for a false start.
Jereem Richards (Trinidad) added the Commonwealth 200m to the World Indoor title he won in Belgrade with defending champion Zharnel Hughes (England), second. Richards’s time of 19.80 was a PR and a Championship record.
