BLAKE’S TITLE WAIT GOES ON

USAIN BOLT didn’t turn up for the 100 metres and nor did the man he tipped to end a winless run at the Commonwealth Games. This was meant to be a formality for Yohan Blake, who is the second-fastest sprinter in history but failed even to gatecrash the top two of a weak field on the Gold Coast. The win instead went to South Africa’s Akani Simbine, who beat his South African teammate Henricho Bruintjies into second. Blake was third and so the wait for his first individual title since 2011 continues, as does the uncertainty over whether the 28-year-old will ever be a major force again. Perhaps it was for the best, then, that Bolt, his fellow Jamaican, didn’t make the trip, contrary to Blake’s suggestion in the build-up that he would. Credit to Simbine in all this, but the line-up here was mediocre, undermined by the decisions of England’s CJ Ujah and Canada’s Andre De Grasse to stay away, and made worse by Adam Gemili’s withdrawal earlier in the day with an adductor tear. Gemili’s team-mate, Asha Philip, finished fourth in the women’s 100m final behind Michelle-Lee Ahye of Trinidad and Tobago. Philip said: ‘I am so much better than that. I was so confident after the semis and then that happens. I’m really frustrated with myself.’