Heavyweights batteredin 100m freestyle stunner

GOLD COAST, Australia: Scotland’s Duncan Scott produced arguably the upset of the Commonwealth Games swimming programme so far on Sunday when he beat Olympic champion Kyle Chalmers with a late surge to win the men’s 100m freestyle title.

The 20-year-old, who had already won three bronze medals, had been sixth at the turn for home but chased down a tiring Chad le Clos and just beat a surging Chalmers to the wall to touch in 48.02 seconds.

South Africa’s le Clos and Chalmers, who had also won the 200m freestyle title and was a member of Australia’s 4x100m freestyle gold medal-winning team, were tied for second in 48.15.Scott became the first Scottish gold medallist at the Gold Coast Aquatics Centre and said he was particularly pleased to have executed his race tactics to perfection.

“I’m speechless to be honest, and that doesn’t happen often. The main thing there was to execute my own race,” he said.

Meanwhile, Jamaica’s former world champion Yohan Blake sailed into the final of the 100 metres, living up to his top billing on the opening day of the athletics.

In front of festive crowd at Carrara Stadium, the 28-year-old qualified fastest with a time of 10.06 seconds to raise his hopes of a maiden gold medal at the quadrennial Games in Monday’s (today’s) final.

Kemar Hyman of the Cayman Islands also showed himself in decent shape, qualifying second fastest for Monday’s final with a time of 10.11 seconds ahead of England’s Adam Gemili, a world championships relay gold medallist last year.

Englishman Nick Miller hurled a Games-record 80.26m to win the hammer throw and Uganda’s Joshua Cheptegei, the world silver-medallist, won the men’s 5,000m in 13min 50.83sec.

Australia’s track cyclists, resurgent after their 2016 Olympics flop, ended the competition with another three golds and were only denied a clean sweep when Scotland’s Mark Stewart won the 40km points race.

“There has been a lot of work behind the scenes, but we have such a great squad,” said Stephanie Morton, who won the women’s keirin.

“We’ve got no prima donnas or people who are hard work. That environment is really flourishing on the track. We get behind each other and support each other. And that internal competition, it’s working wonders.”

Elsewhere, Olympic champion Max Whitlock of England stumbled to sixth in the men’s floor gymnastics and finished second in the pommel horse as his campaign fell flat.

Steven Kari slammed the floor in delight and hurled his belt into the crowd as he won the men’s 94kg weightlifting to earn Papua New Guinea their first gold of the Games.

Australia’s Dane Sampson clinched victory in the 10m air rifle — but only just — despite producing his worst score on his final shot of the gold-medal shootout.

Saina Nehwal beat Singapore’s Yeo Jia Min to clinch a 3-1 victory and put India into the mixed-teams badminton final against Lee Chong Wei’s Malaysia.

And India also upset Singapore to win the women’s team table tennis — depriving them of the title for the first time since the sport was introduced to the Games in 2002.