IT’S SUPER MAX
King of the gym Whitlock leads England gold rush
AGOLDEN night followed a dire day and finally Team England were on the up Down Under yesterday. They were led to the top of the medal table by one double Olympic champion after another took a painful and unexpected beating.
The latter was Alistair Brownlee, for so long invincible on land, sea and bikes. But here, for this Commonwealth Games triathlon, England’s flag- bearer was a diminished force, having missed weeks of training in the past two months with a calf injury.
The lack of miles in his legs showed. The 29-year-old was top after the 750m swim and still ahead entering the transition after the 20km ride, but he quickly wilted on the 5km run and trickled home in 10th. No place for one of Britain’s finest and most dominant athletes.
Brother Jonny, 27, managed only seventh, missing his big chance to edge ahead in the Brownlee sibling rivalry. Hindered by a thigh injury of his own, it was a wretched start to the Games, made worse by the disqualification of 50m butterfly world champion Ben Proud in his heat for a false start.
Weak stuff, all told. Horribly underwhelming. But then along came the magnificent Max Whitlock — marquee name in a gymnastics team loaded with medal quality.
He hid in a back room for most of the team event — something he tends to do for greater focus — before the two-time Olympic gold medallist emerged to crush the field in the floor and pommel horse.
He will now chase further titles in those disciplines as an individual after opting against a defence of his all-round gold from Glasgow 2014.
‘I had to wait till the last two pieces to compete but I was keeping an eye on the scores in the back gym,’ Whitlock said. ‘I’m really happy with floor and pommel, but the most important thing today was to contribute to the team. Taking the team gold is always special.’ It is important to add that it was not a one-man show. Far from it.
Nile Wilson, the YouTube guy who had 3.5m hits for vaulting into a pair of shorts, was exceptional and produced the best scores for the horizontal and parallel bars. He must be a good bet for all-round gold later in the Games after winning two titles in Glasgow.
There was also Courtney Tulloch, Dominick Cunningham and James Hall, and as a collective the team score of 258.950 left England a hefty 10 points clear of Canada in second place, with Scotland narrowly beaten into the bronze-medal position.
The gymnastics gold was the centrepiece of a run of three in seven minutes, with Sophie Thornhill and pilot Helen Scott winning cycling’s blind and visually impaired sprint, before swimmer Aimee Willmott beat Scot Hannah Miley to win the 400m individual medley.
It was a stunning result for Willmott, who was beaten by Miley into silver-medal spot in 2014.
Most fascinating is that 25-yearold Willmott possibly won her
breakthrough gold thanks to her own academic research. She wrote a dissertation, published in the European Journal of Sport
Science, into the effects of clothing worn between a warmup and competition.
She found that the right clothing can generate a 0.59 per cent improvement and here she beat Miley by just 0.26sec. She said: ‘After the 12 months I’ve had with two broken ribs, a bashed elbow and knee surgery it was just a huge sigh of relief to get here. To just do the business is incredible.
‘The injuries were really bad to the point where I couldn’t have a conversation because I was so stressed.’
Eleanor Robinson (50m butterfly in the S7 classification) and Thomas Hamer (200m free in the S14) added two more golds in the pool before James Wilby won a fourth in the 200m breaststroke.
He lay seventh with 100m to go and third on the last length but surged to the title in 2:08.05, 0.27sec ahead of defending champion Ross Murdoch of Scotland.
That made six golds for the day. Not bad at all after the way it started.