Commonwealth Games: Day One
The Commonwealth Games continue to lurch from one disaster to another as things finally get underway, but nobody bothers to turn up.
So far the events have been poorly attended, there were more gymnasts at the gymnastics than spectators and embarrassingly only 100 people bothering to watch Wales v New Zealand in the hockey.
This comes on the back of collapsing bridges, an athlete’s village that resembled a building site, chaos at the boxers weigh-in and a stadium roof that came crashing down. Now nobody is turning up, except bizarrely Princess Diana who was apparently spotted by Suresh Kalmadi.
In terms of the sport that has actually started to take place, Nigeria won the first gold medal in the 48kg weight lifting category, while British Olympic hero Rebecca Aldington managed to scrape a bronze to get England’s medal tally up and running in the 200metres freestyle which also saw Jazz Carlin coming second earning Wales their first swimming medal in 36 years.
Elsewhere the England men’s 4x100metres freestyle team took a silver medal as Australia clinched gold to continue their dominance in the pool. The Aussies followed up on that gold with one in the gymnastics beating what can be best described as an England “B” team into silver.
In the women’s hockey, Scotland put on a brave show against the giants of India going 1-0 up through Vicky Bunce but they couldn’t hold on for the win and ended up drawing 1-1. Wales were obliterated 5-1 by New Zealand.
All in all a sluggish start to the games but these things normally take a day or two to get going and attendances will probably start to rise as the showpiece events start.
It’s been a decent start for the home nations, England are racking up the silvers and are on the search for an elusive gold; Wales have silver while Scotland have picked up a bronze.
The Australians currently sit atop the medal table with India closing in but it still very early days.
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