Commonwealth

England captain Fran Williams said her team were “far from our best” in a heavy defeat by defending Commonwealth champions Australia.

The Roses opened their campaign in Pool A with a 83-34 victory over Northern Ireland on Saturday.

But they were outplayed on Sunday as Australia cruised to a 66-47 win at The Hydro in Glasgow.

“That’s not the result we came for and not the performance,” Williams told BBC Radio 5 Live.

“We didn’t cope well with their physicality. It’s really tough when a game blows out like that.”

Australia started strongly, racing into an 18-11 lead after the first quarter and extending their advantage to 56-35 by the end of the third.

Sophie Garbin scored 41 goals from 42 attempts for Australia, while Olivia Tchine was England’s highest scorer with 23 from 25.

England face Malawi at 14:00 BST on Monday.

Earlier on Sunday, Scotland picked up their first win in Pool B with a 56-47 victory over Wales.

England, who won gold in 2018, failed to make the podium at Birmingham 2022.

Only two of the 12 players in the squad – Eleanor Cardwell and Imogen Allison – have experience in the Commonwealth Games after injuries to gold medallists Helen Housby and Natalie Metcalf, who withdrew with a calf injury on Monday.

Jess Thirlby stepped down as head coach in March for family reasons, leaving assistant Anna Stembridge – head coach from 2011 to 2015 – in interim charge.

Shanahan missed the chance for a second chunk of metal in the last race of the night as she competed in the 4x100m mixed relay team who finished fifth, though they did set a new Scottish record.

Part of the team was, surprisingly, poster boy Scott.

He received a hero’s welcome as he returned, racing second after Evan Jones and before Evie Davies, but ultimately the field was too strong.

Earlier in the evening, Sean McCann finished eighth in the men’s 400m freestyle final, Lucy Grieve was seventh in the women’s 50m butterfly final and Matthew Ward broke the men’s 50m backstroke Scottish record on his way to seventh in that final.

After tears in Paris, tears again in Glasgow.

It leaves even the great Adam Ramsay-Peaty wondering how much of this is worth it.

“I work a lot harder than what it says on the scoreboard,” the Englishman said after taking 100m breaststroke bronze at the Commonwealth Games, his eyes and cheeks red with emotion.

“It hurts too much. I have got to approach training differently now because it hurts too much.”

Ramsay-Peaty has done it all in this sport.

Three Olympic gold medals. Eight world titles. The 14 fastest times in history.

But after taking a break from swimming amid a wave of mental health issues in 2023, he is still searching for that winning feeling again on the big stage.

He was pipped to Olympic gold in Paris two years ago. In Glasgow, despite coming into the final as the fastest qualifier, he had to settle for bronze.

He was beaten by Australia’s Sam Williamson but also Jersey’s history-maker Filip Nowacki, the 18-year-old he has taken under his wing.

Ramsay-Peaty was third at halfway and could not close the gap.

“It took a lot of courage to get back into the sport, so we should be happy with everything we get, but then that contradicts the athlete inside me and what I work for,” he said.

“I just think I deserve more. I know sport isn’t about what you deserve or even what you work for – it’s who gets it on the day.

“I just know I’m a better athlete than that. It’s very disappointing.”

Ramsay-Peaty has spoken about the difficult decisions that come with being an elite athlete. The time away from his son, whom he held in his arms after the Paris silver. The events at home he has to miss.

“They are not even sacrifices; they are choices,” he said.

“It’s like getting knocked out in the group stages in the World Cup for a very good team. You know you’re better and it hurts because you know you have to wait for a very long time for the next championships.

“This is probably – realistically – my last Commonwealth Games and I thought I’d trained for better. I could do better. I’ve been faster this season. That’s where the frustration is.”

Ramsay-Peaty has made no secret of the fact he is still competing in the quest for Olympic gold.

He considered retirement again after Paris, but committed to another four years when the 50m race was added to programme for Los Angeles 2028.

This 100m breaststroke is his event – the one in which he went unbeaten in eight years – but there may be a time when he has to let it go.

The 50m race – a dash down one length of the pool – would be less taxing on the body, and Ramsay-Peaty is due back in the pool for that event on Sunday morning.

“Is the 100 even viable any more? I don’t know,” he said.

“When it hurts like this, the 50 is probably my super strength with my power.

“With the Olympics, that’s probably going to be more realistic, but it’s too early to tell.

“I just feel like I couldn’t have given more this cycle. If I had given less, would it have even equalled more?”

Given the emotion, there are times you wonder how close Ramsay-Peaty is to walking away entirely.

He appeared to walk to the edge but always turned back, insisting the drive for LA remains.

“Of course,” he said.

“I know I’m a sprinter. I know I can do very well because I’ve done it. It doesn’t disappear overnight.

“It requires me to look at the formula and see how I can get to that speed again.”

Having grown up on an island with about 100,000 inhabitants, Nowacki is rapidly become one of the best breaststrokers in the world.

He left Jersey to train at Millfield School and will move to Loughborough after the Games to continue his swimming as part of Team GB’s elite squad preparing for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

Nathan Jegou, who coached Nowacki as a youngster and is managing the Jersey swimming team in Glasgow, says he is excited at what the islander can do.

“It’s just the start of his journey, and the last two years for him has been phenomenal,” he told BBC Jersey.

“I’m excited to see what he does and we’re proud that he’s one of us.

“We’re such a small island, to come here and get a silver medal, it means everything to him, means everything to us, and we hope he can maybe do it again later in the week.”

With four fourth places in Birmingham in 2022, Richards was looking for his first Commonwealth medal to complete the set of Olympic, world and European podium positions.

Wales opted for an entirely different quartet in the pool in the final after Kieran Bird, Harry Milne, Medi Harris and Meghan Higgs had qualified fourth fastest in the heats.

Sutton and Taylor had qualified for their respective individual semi-finals in the 100m backstroke and 100m breaststroke, but both pulled out with a full focus on the relay.

The policy paid off and Taylor, 17, brought Wales back from fifth to third with a brilliant final leg.

Earlier, Rose Williams finished fourth in the women’s S14 200m freestyle final.

The S14 category covers swimmers who have an intellectual impairment, which typically leads to the athletes having difficulties with regard to pattern recognition, sequencing, and memory, or having a slower reaction time, which impact on sport performance in general.

Tyler Melbourne-Smith finished sixth in the 400m freestyle final, while Lewis Fraser qualified for the 100m butterfly final to be staged on Sunday evening.

Scott was not being caught, though. Not tonight. Not here. Not with his Scotland kit on and his team looking to him to spark their Games.

A Games which he has backed vocally since Glasgow salvaged it from the wreckage of Victoria’s aborted bid.

Almost exactly 12 years after he won his first Commonwealth medal in this very building, he was taking his 14th in his fourth Games. And it was going to be gold.

“I don’t usually feel the expectation, but that one I probably did,” he told BBC Sport Scotland. “Simply because it’s day one and I love representing Scotland and you want to try and get the whole team off to a good start.

“I think there was a bigger picture of trying to get good momentum for the crowd involvement for the rest of the week, and the team as well. So I felt that expectation, but it’s nothing I couldn’t deal with.”

You got the sense there was little that could have discomfited the Alloa native – a momentary loss of his accreditation apart – and even a post-race visit to the drugs testers wasn’t going to trouble him.

Scott’s got the weekend off now – he’s an old boy among the swimming set, after all – but he’s more than done his bit to set Glasgow 2026 off on the right note.

A sickening injury to England’s Gabriel Langton overshadowed his team’s silver medal in the men’s team gymnastics final at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

The 19-year-old, from the City of Birmingham Gymnastics Club, needed lengthy treatment on the mat after a horrible fall in the final rotation of the evening at The Arena.

Langton fell head first to the floor after missing his catch on the horizontal metal bar, three metres in the air, leading to a lengthy delay to the action as he was tended to by up to a dozen medical staff.

He was eventually led away on a trolley after being moved on to a stretcher with his head and neck braced and left to huge applause from the packed crowd who had spent much of the previous 10 minutes in hushed silence.

Langton was seen to be conscious and moving his legs and arms before leaving the arena floor, while team officials later said he was moving and speaking to doctors.

In a statement, Team England said: “We are grateful to the medical teams who responded immediately to provide assistance.

“He has been taken to hospital and we will share more information when it is available.”

When competition resumed, his England team-mates were unable to overhaul their deficit to Canada who claimed their first gold medal in the event in 20 years, having finished second to England at the past two games.

Langton, a late call-up to Team England in the place of the injured six-time Olympic medallist Max Whitlock, was unable to join his teammates on the podium as England collected their silver medals.

Team-mate Luke Whitehouse, who was first on to the apparatus after the competition restarted and posted a relatively low score of 11.700, said: “When something like that happens, you’ve just got to forget about it and reset. I just had to focus on my routine one skill at a time.”

Whitehouse added: “From what we’ve heard, he’s doing OK. Gymnastics is such a dangerous sport and things like this remind us of that. It’s one of those things you have to put out of your mind.”

Felix Dolci, who helped Canada to gold and led qualifying for the all-around competition, said: “It’s terrible but it goes to show that gymnastics is a very, very difficult and complicated sport. It’s dangerous you know sometimes.

“All our thoughts go to Gabriel and the team. Pushing through this is definitely not easy, England stayed focussed, they stayed in the zone, a huge shout out to them because that’s not an easy one.

“For any gymnast that was on the field of play, seeing this not only is difficult, but something you never want to see. It goes to show how hard the sport is.”

Hamish Carter from Team Scotland – who narrowly missed out on a bronze medal to Australia in the final rotation – said: “I didn’t actually see what happened. I’m just so happy that he’s alright and, having experienced that, anything could have happened.

“We’ve walked away with no medal but I’m thinking of Gabe in this moment.”

Adam Ramsay-Peaty becomes the latest to face the latter situation on Saturday – in the 100m breaststroke final at Glasgow’s Commonwealth Games, shortly after 21:00 BST.

The greatest breaststroker the world has seen is on his own journey – one which he hopes ends with a third individual gold at the Los Angeles Olympics in two years’ time.

Manoeuvring into his slipstream is 18-year-old Filip Nowacki.

Master meet apprentice.

Not only has Nowacki started to pick off Ramsay-Peaty’s age-group records, he is part of the 31-year-old’s AP Race stable – the programme set up to develop the next generation.

Ramsay-Peaty has spoken of wanting to mentor and pass on advice to his young pretender. Last year, Nowacki repaid him by breaking his 100m breaststroke junior British record.

Ramsay-Peaty, who is chasing a 33rd major gold of a glittering career, appeared in no mood to hand over the baton in Friday’s semi-finals.

There is uncertainty around a broken finger suffered in June but, side by side in lanes four and five, Ramsay-Peaty built an early lead and held off the youngster in the second length. Nowacki was close but never quite close enough.

“I saw his front wave, but at the same time that is what I train for,” Ramsay-Peaty said.

“I know I am a sprinter. I know I can go out fast.”

Nowacki, who competes for Jersey here having learned to swim under the tutelage of Nathan Jegou on the Channel Island, is arguably best in the 200m event – a distance Ramsay-Peaty does not race.

In this shorter contest, it is the youngster who should stay stronger for longer.

And when they spoke afterwards alongside each other, Ramsay-Peaty, all chest and tattooed muscle, towered over his young rival – so much so you would be forgiven for thinking the pair compete in different sports.

Nowacki appeared wary of Ramsay-Peaty but there is a cheeky confidence within.

“Course I do,” he laughed when asked if he believes he can win.

“No, I wish, I’m gonna give it my best shot” was his quick addition.

Nowacki was not long out of armbands when Ramsay-Peaty won gold in this same pool at the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

That was his emergence on to the global stage and two years later the Englishman won his first Olympic title in Rio de Janeiro. Nowacki was only eight years old.

“Adam is a true role model in the sport,” Nowacki said.

“I grew up watching him race at Rio, Tokyo and Paris.

“To race him and not be a random competitor but give him a race is special to me.”

The pair should compete as Team GB team-mates in LA but are also racing for their own personal ambitions on Saturday.

Despite winning an emotional silver at the Olympics in Paris two years ago, Ramsay-Peaty has not stood atop a major podium since the Birmingham Commonwealth Games in 2022.

In that meet he won the 50m crown but lost his 100m title to James Wilby. A “self-destructive spiral” amid issues with his mental health, which led to him considering his future in the sport, soon followed.

If Nowacki wins a medal it would be Jersey’s first at the Commonwealth Games for 36 years. They have only ever won one gold medal.

Australia’s Sam Williamson, who won the first semi-final, will also have something to say.

“It is going to be a good scrap, especially down that last 25m, and I do love a good scrap,” Ramsay-Peaty said.

He would never go quietly.

Scotland claimed three medals in a magnificent 45 minutes in the pool to kick-start the hosts’ Commonwealth Games in fine style in Glasgow – and added a second gold of the day an hour later to almost take the lid off Tollcross in the city’s east end.

Poster boy Duncan Scott started the rush, defending his 200m individual medley gold from Birmingham four years ago by slicing a chunk off his own Games record.

Then Para-swimmer Stephen Clegg added silver in 100m freestyle S13 – with brother James fourth – after battling back from an injury-ravaged year.

And Katie Shanahan upgraded her 2022 Games bronze to silver in the 200m backstroke.

The frenzied scenes around this clammy building eventually abated, only for Faye Rogers to spark more bedlam with a rampant gold in the 200m individual medley SM10.

The drama all unfolded at the same Tollcross pool where 29-year-old Scott won the first of his now 14 Games medals in 2014.

Scotland’s most decorated Commonwealth Games athlete was a wee boy then – just 17 – but is a big man now and was under pressure to deliver a first rendition of Flower of Scotland at this staging.

And he delivered sensationally, streaking away from the field in the backstroke and breaststroke legs before closing it out in the freestyle.

Watching from the call room, Clegg could not fail to be roused.

There were times over the past year where the 30-year-old thought he might not be at these Games, and that his swimming career was over.

But he made it to Glasgow and managed to add another silver to the won he claimed in the 50m event four years ago.

Shanahan came home from that Birmingham Games with two surprise bronze medals so silver was an upgrade for another athlete who has come through tough times in recent months.

Her Scottish team-mate Holly McGill just missed out on the medals in fourth.

That success would have been sufficent to sate the home crowd, but Para-athlete Rogers delivered one of the most dominant performances of the night to clinch a second gold for the hosts and spark a second airing of the anthem.

Olympic champion Rhys McClenaghan qualified for the Commonwealth Games pommel horse final as he posted a score of 14.500 after an almost flawless display with his new routine.

All eyes in the Emirates Arena were on McClenaghan and he delivered, even celebrating with a jig after stepping off the apparatus.

The 27-year-old finished third in the qualifying standings, with Scotland’s Reuben Ward and Canada’s Jordan Carroll (both 14.550) coming in ahead of him.

“It’s amazing to get him back out there, brand new routine, he smashed it with one of the best executions, we’ll take that it’s extremely positive and we have an upgraded routine to do for the final,” said his coach Luke Carson.

McClenaghan, who missed the entirety of 2025 after shoulder surgery, earned an difficult score of 5.500 and an execution score of 9.000, the highest in qualifying.

He is aiming to win his third Commonwealth Games medal on the pommel horse after picking up gold in 2018 and silver in 2022.

The Newtownards man also competed in floor qualifying for the first time since 2018, but failed to reach the final.

He scored 12.350 for his routine as he stumbled at the end when trying to land from a triple somersault.

Team-mate Eamon Montgomery faces an anxious wait to see if his score of 13.000 will be enough to qualify for the final after he received a 0.100 penalty.

Ewan McAteer reached the vault final as he finished third in qualifying with a score of 13.650.

“I definitely performed to the best of my ability, so very happy with how today has gone,” he said.

“It’s been a bit of a turbulent time for me out here, I’ve pulled a muscle in my stomach that extends down to my groin which has really flared so that was the first bit of gymnastics I did out there but a pulled groin wasn’t stopping me today.”

The first day of the 2026 Commonwealth Games is upon us and it’s a busy enough Friday for various Team Northern Ireland athletes in Glasgow.

It’s an early start Gary Kelly who is in action in the men’s singles against New Zealand’s Shannon McIlroy at 08:30 BST after his win against Niue on Thursday.

Shauna O’Neill and Chloe Wilson will face Niue in the women’s pairs at 11:20 after their victory

At the Tollcross Swimming Centre, it is a morning full of heats from 10:30.

Victoria Catterson will be in the women’s 400m freestyle while Grace Davison and Lottie Cullen will get under way in the women’s 200m backstroke.

Conor Ferguson and Paddy Johnston will be in the 50m backstroke with Alana Burns-Aiken in the 50m butterfly and Adam Bradley in the 100m breaststroke.

Barry McClements will go in the men’s S10 100m butterfly while Team NI will take part in both the men’s and women’s 100m freestyle relay heats.

Should the various swimmers progress through their heats, the semi-finals or finals of all those events will take place that evening from 19:00.

At the SEC Centre, one of Team NI’s boxing contingent will be in action.

Louis Rooney fights in the men’s bantamweight 55kg round of 32 against Mathealira Seholoholo from Lesotho at 11:45.

From 13:00 at the Emirates Arena, Olympic champion Rhys McClenaghan alongside Ewan McAteer and Eamon Montgomery are in qualification action.

One of the louder cheers came for the Falklands Islands – in the news recently following Argentina’s victory over England in the football World Cup semi-finals – and another followed when the Samoa team emerged and performed a haka in front of the dignitaries in the Royal Box.

But nothing compared to the noise which greeted the arrival of the Scotland team, who entered the arena last in their white shirts and kilts and lifted many in the capacity crowd from their seats.

A large Loch Ness Monster representation then emerged, before, backed by bagpipers and drummers, a rousing rendition of Flower of Scotland followed.

The next section of the evening featured theatrical performances – a show billed as “a love letter to Glasgow and the Commonwealth”.

It began with a performance by Scottish folk and country singer Nathan Evans and a dance under a replica of Glasgow Central Station’s iconic clock.

The saying “Meet me under the clock” is famous in these parts.

Singer Callum Beattie’s rendition of Baccara’s Yes Sir, I Can Boogie – the 1970s disco tune recently adopted as Scotland’s unofficial anthem – had the Scottish athletes dancing in their seats.

Held indoors in front of about 10,000 people, this was a more intimate ceremony than the last time Glasgow hosted the Commonwealth Games, when a 40,000-strong crowd witnessed the opening of the Games in 2014 at Celtic Park.

There was a point, after the Australian state of Victoria withdrew as hosts in 2023, when some thought these Games would not happen. Glasgow stepped in at short notice to ensure otherwise.

There are eight fewer sports involved compared to 2014, given the short build-up, and venues from 12 years ago have been repurposed.

But Commonwealth Sport president Donald Rukare, wearing a tartan kilt in the colours of his home country Uganda, said this edition has been made possible by the “extraordinary legacy of 2014 and by a city that once again welcomes us with warm hearts and open arms”.

Five Northern Ireland boxers are one win away from a Commonwealth Games’ medal following Wednesday’s draw.

Kaci Rock, Michaela Walsh, Jansseen Hill, Garyn McAllister and Willie John McCartan will all enter the competition at the quarter-final stage next Tuesday and Wednesday in Glasgow.

Defending featherweight champion Walsh will face Scotland’s Lara Brown in Wednesday’s afternoon session, as the Holy Family GG boxer seeks to return to the podium for a fourth-straight Games having won silver at the 2014 edition in Glasgow and again four years later at Gold Coast.

Welterweight Rock takes on Niue’s Karen Te Ruki Pasene on Tuesday afternoon, which will also see heavyweight McAllister take on Ghana’s Jibril Muntari.

In Wednesday’s evening session at the SEC Centre, light-heavyweight Hill faces 2025 World bronze medallist Chantelle Reid from England, while super-heavyweight McCartan will meet Ghana’s Daniel Plange.

The boxing tournament begins on Friday and bantamweight Louis Rooney is the first Northern Ireland boxer in action, taking on Lesthotho’s Mathealira Seholoholo in the opening round at bantamweight and should the Star ABC man prevail, he will meet Australia’s Jye Dixon on Sunday in the last 16.

Nicole Clyde begins her bantamweight challenge on Sunday against Ghana’s Nancy Bamfo, while welterweight JP Hale is also in action at the least 16 stage with his opponent to be determined.

On Monday, 2022 featherweight champion Jude Gallagher makes his bow when he boxes in the last 16 stage at lightweight with his opponent to be determined, while light-heavyweight Eoghan Quinn is a similar scenario,

Also on Monday’s last 16 bouts, flyweight Caitlin Fryers meets Bangladesh’s Zinnat Ferdous, while light-middleweight Jon McConnell is tasked with India’s Sumit Kundu.

All quarter-finals are scheduled for Tuesday, 28 July and Wednesday, 29 July with Thursday a rest day before the semi-finals on Friday, 31 July and finals on Saturday, 1 August.

It just adds to what will be an especially special Games for Marshall, who is joined in the bowls team by his niece Beth Riva.

“It’s a bit nerve-wracking really,” 59-year-old Marshall told BBC Scotland. “It’s not very often I get a bit emotional, but I certainly had a tear in my eye when I came out the lift this morning and all the athletes were there. It’s just a huge honour.”

Resplendent in full kilt on a sweltering day, and proprietorially clutching the flagstick like a child would a favourite toy, the East Lothian bowler was in his element when talking about the news on Wednesday.

Marshall conceded he would have to let it go for the evening before having it returned before the big show.

But he might have to battle with Adlington for first shot of it when that time comes. “And I’d win that fight,” joked the 39-year-old heavyweight.

Adlington, who won judo gold in 2014 and 2022 and is looking to end her career by completing the treble, revealed the two of them have known the news for a few weeks but had been sworn to secrecy.

“That’s been really hard,” she told BBC Sport Scotland. “I was told I could tell my nearest and dearest but for everyone else it will be a massive surprise.

“I’m just so excited. I was so nervous when I woke up this morning, and I think I’ll be even more nervous tomorrow. I might not even sleep tonight but if it’s even half as good as it was in 2014, it will be amazing.”

The BBC Alba deal means there will still be some live coverage of the Commonwealth Games on free-to-air television in Scotland.

The commentary and presentation will, of course, be predominantly in Gaelic.

A similar deal is in place in Wales. This means there will be some live coverage on the Welsh language broadcaster S4C.

These deals happened because TV rights packages are available to cover many indigenous languages across Commonwealth countries – not just the main language.

The BBC was outbid for live English language rights in the UK by subscription service TNT. Channel 5 later secured a package of two hours of daily recorded highlights.

The Welsh and Gaelic deals ensure there will at least be some free-to-air live coverage.

BBC Alba and S4C are available to all viewers in Scotland and Wales respectively.

But the profile of the TV coverage will, inevitably, still be much lower to that afforded to previous Commonwealth Games in the UK.

The games in 1970, 1986, 2002, 2014 and 2022 got wall-to-wall coverage on BBC One.

The schedule on BBC One is currently dominated by the World Cup and Wimbledon. Major sporting events have the potential to bring large, diverse groups of people together to share memorable moments.

The deals covering BBC Alba and S4C are good news for these channels and inevitably some who do not speak Gaelic or Welsh will watch too.

But how will the scaled down Commonwealth Games fare without high profile live coverage on a major free-to-air channel?