Austin powers to the podium as Brownlees miss out
SCOTLAND’S Marc Austin won triathlon bronze at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast as England’s Brownlee brothers missed out on medals.
Two-time Olympic champion Alistair Brownlee faded to finish 10th, while brother Jonny came home seventh.
South Africa’s Henri Schoeman took gold in 52 minutes 31 seconds, beating Australia’s Jacob Birtwhistle. Earlier, Jessica Learmonth won England’s first medal of the Games with silver in the women’s race.
England picked up silver medals in the men’s team pursuit and men’s team sprint as the track cycling competition got under way.
Ethan Hayter, Charlie Tanfield, Oliver Wood and Kian Emadi could have no complaints about being beaten to gold by Australia in the team pursuit as the host nation’s quartet of Leigh Howard, Sam Welsford, Kelland O’Brien and Alex Porter broke Great Britain’s world record from Rio with a stunning time of three minutes 49.804 seconds.
“We knew it was going to be quick today,” said Hayter, who added that Wood had a slow puncture on his bike. “With them doing a world record we can’t really beat ourselves up too much about it.”
Hayter, Tanfield and Emadi made up three-quarters of the Britain team that won the world title in Apeldoorn last month, when Australia did not compete to focus their efforts on this event.
Philip Hindes, Joe Truman and Ryan Owens followed up with silver in the team sprint as New Zealand took gold in a time of 42.877 seconds.
“I think we can be happy with that,” said Hindes.”
Katy Marchant shook off illness to take women’s team sprint bronze alongside Lauren Bate, edging Wales’ pair Rachel James and Eleanor Coster into fourth.
England quartet Emily Nelson, Ellie Dickinson, Rebecca Raybould and Emily Kay finished fourth in a women’s team pursuit dominated by Australia, who took gold in a Commonwealth record time of 4:15.214 seconds.
Scotland’s Neil Fachie and Matt Rotherham broke their own Commonwealth record to win the blind and visually impaired men’s time trial in 1:00.065, while England’s Sophie Turnbull and Helen Scott won the blind and visually impaired women’s sprint after breaking the world record in qualifying.