MELBOURNE, 26 March 2006 — England’s best day at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games ended in tears when their relay jinx returned to deny gold for the 4x400 women’s team.
A controversial evening at the MCG also brought heartbreak for Australia’s 1500 meters gold medal hope Craig Mottram who tripped and fell during the race to scupper his chances.
England’s women crossed the line first ahead of Australia but the host nation were promoted to the gold after Tamsyn Lewis lodged a protest against Natasha Danvers Smith for starting in her position at the second changeover.
Despite the disappointment for Mottram and the English relay team, both Australia and England had many other reasons to celebrate.
Australia equaled the record for the most medals won at a single games with one day still remaining. They have 207 medals, including 79 golds. England are second with 32 golds ahead of Canada (22), India (21) and South Africa (12).England’s haul was boosted by a dominant performance in the boxing ring where they won gold in five of the 11 categories.
World 100 meters record holder Asafa Powell collected his second gold medal as the Jamaicans cleaned up the sprint relays to go with their men’s and women’s 100, 200 and sprint hurdles golds. Jamaica are the first nation to win all the sprint medals at a major championships since a Carl Lewis-inspired US team at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.
Samaresh Jung, the Indian shooter who had earned the nickname “goldfinger,” failed in his attempt at a record sixth gold in shooting when his pistol malfunctioned.
There was another disappointment for India when they lost the women’s hockey final 1-0 to the hosts after a late goal from Nikki Hudson.
England’s 4x400 relay disqualification compounded a miserable week at the MCG after their men’s 4x100 relay team dropped the baton in their heat and were eliminated.
It also enabled Australia to complete the 4x400m relay double when individual 400 champion John Steffensen led off.
That was small consolation to Mottram, whose brother Neil won a basketball gold on Friday. He was inconsolable after the 1500 where he was favorite to win in his home town.
The 5,000 silver medalist was ideally placed in third position with 700 meters to go when England’s Nick McCormick clipped the heels of teammate Andrew Baddeley, who in turn fell forward and brought down Mottram. New Zealand’s Nick Willis avoided the commotion and ran a brilliant race to claim his country’s first 1,500m Commonwealth gold medal.
At least the Australians finished the night on a high when Kym Howe led a 1-2 in the women’s pole vault leaping to a new games record of 4.62 meters. Defending champion Tatiana Grigorieva was second. New Zealand’s Nicholas Willis clinched the 1,500m, England’s Nick Neiland and Phillips Idowu took the javelin and triple jump respectively. Uganda’s Boniface Toroitich won the 10,000m.
England’s boxers collected a record-equaling five gold medals courtesy of lightweight Frankie Gavin, super-heavyweight David Price, flyweight Don Broadhurst, featherweight Stephen Smith and light-welterweight Jamie Russan.
Australia came away with two golds through middleweight Jarrod Fletcher and heavyweight Brad Pitt, while India celebrated only its second-ever games boxing gold with bantamweight Akhil Kumar. Jafet Uutoni, of Namibia, was the light-flyweight winner with Ken Anderson of Scotland clinching light-heavyweight gold and Bongani Mwelase of South Africa taking the welterweight glory. Singapore hammered home their credentials as the major games power in table tennis when Li Jiawei and Zhang Xue both qualified for the women’s singles before they both teamed up for the women’s doubles gold.
