Agony as Hughes stripped of gold on lap of honour
ZHARNEL HUGHES dodged a bullet from a thief in January but he couldn’t dodge one from the officials in the men’s 200m final at the Commonwealth games yesterday.
How dramatic it was, watching the 22-year-old storm to the result of the night — and his life in taking gold — only for the television replays to offer an inconvenient truth.
What they showed was clear — he started drifting left as he tired in the final 20 metres and after he stepped on to the line between his lane and that of Trinidad and Tobago’s Jereem Richards, he swung out his left arm and caught Richards on the chest.
From there, he crossed the line in 20.12sec, the same as Richards, and his fractional win was confirmed via photo, prompting Hughes to take off on a lap of honour, complete with flag and selfies and the whole arm-waving shebang.
It was only when he got back to the home straight that he was told by a blueblazered official. There isn’t a clock at a track in the world that could measure how quickly his grin disappeared.
He stood shaking his head just as Richards started to dance, and then the drama ratcheted up a notch when england lodged an appeal. It never felt likely to succeed, but it was a full 90 minutes before that became formal. Agony for Hughes, therefore, and a vindication of sorts for Michael Johnson, the track legend, who a day earlier pointed out vulnerabilities in Hughes’ technique. Hughes’ thoughts on that and everything else will go unknown for now as he left the stadium without a word. But regardless of how his night played out, it still only ranks as the second most dramatic occurrence of his year, considering he was held up at gunpoint and shot at while training in Jamaica. He thankfully sprinted to safety on that occasion; on this lesser matter there was no escaping. The disqualification saw leon Reid of northern Ireland take bronze behind Canada’s Aaron Brown and Richards in gold. It was stunning theatre on a strong day of english medals following a stretch of desperately uninspiring performances earlier this week. Perhaps the most impressive belonged to Dina Asher-Smith, who emerged with a bronze from one of the strongest fields in the games in the women’s 200m.
Against olympic champion elaine Thompson, as well as Shaunae Miller- uibo and Shericka Jackson of Jamaica, Asher-Smith led until around 120m. She was passed by Miller-uibo of the Bahamas and Jackson, but held off Thompson to cross in 22.29sec.
Asher- Smith said: ‘When the start list came out I was like, “great, this is just my life, everyone wants to come and do a 200, don’t they?” So to medal in that field means a lot. I knew I needed to bring my A game.’
With a clean run of fitness, the 22-year-old will certainly be a medal contender at the Tokyo olympics. There was also a silver in the 800m for Kyle langford. He made his breakthrough by finishing a shock fourth in the london World Championships in 2017 and made a loud promise after that result. He repeated the claim here, saying: ‘By Tokyo it’s definitely going to be gold, I can assure you.’
Sophie Hahn won T38 100m gold, luke Cutts took pole vault bronze and Shara Proctor took bronze in the long jump, giving england five track and field medals for the day. With Katarina JohnsonThompson cruising in the lead after four heptathlon events, it has been a good recovery after a poor start to the athletics.