Triathlon success inspired Scots pair to break own Games record

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

The pair rattled round the track in 1.00.065 seconds, almost two seconds faster than the previous Games record set by Fachie and Craig Maclean to win gold at Glasgow 2014.

“Winning at a home Games was really immense and I’m just delighted to have had the opportunity to come and defend it here and to actually do it,” Fachie said afterwards.

“We had to bring our A game today but we got it done and I’m so, so happy with that.

“We got to see the triathlon earlier, where we picked up our first medal. We were cheering that on back in the village, so that was great motivation.”

England’s Sophie Turnbull and Helen Scott won the blind and visually impaired women’s sprint after breaking the world record in qualifying.

Meanwhile 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 were 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.

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 two-time Olympic champion Hindes.

Katy Marchant shook off illness to collect women’s team sprint bronze alongside Lauren Bate.

Philip Hindes won silver for England in the team sprint event.