Blake puts one hand on 100m title
Gold Coast, April 8: Jamaica’s Yohan Blake had the words of Usain Bolt ringing in his ears as he dominated the sprints on day one of the Commonwealth Games athletics on Sunday.
“Usain told me, ‘ Yohan, you’ve got to win or else you can’t go back home,” said Blake, adding that Bolt also posted a touching message on Instagram saying: “I believe in you.”
Blake eased to 10.06sec in his semi- final to top the timesheets ahead of England’s Adam Gemili, the 2014 silver medallist, while English sprinter Asha Philip was fastest into the women’s final.
Coe earlier insisted that athletics had plenty of talent to remain in a healthy state after Bolt, the eight- time Olympic champion, 100m and 200m world record- holder and Commonwealth gold- medallist.
As the athletics competition 2014 relay Australia’s Smith won race walk, opened, Dane Birdthe men’s but Claire Tallent was left in tears after she was disqualified while leading the women’s race. Fellow Aussie Jemima Montag took gold.
Englishman Nick Miller hurled a Gamesrecord 80.26m to win the hammer throw and Uganda’s Joshua Cheptegei, the world silvermedallist, won the men’s 5,000m in 13min 50.83sec.
In the pool, Cate Campbell won the 50m butterfly to lead Australia to a three- gold haul, but there was a major shock when Scotland’s Duncan Scott produced a thunderous finish to upset a heavyweight field in the 100m freestyle.