Team Scotland picked up where they left off on day one, winning another five medals including gold and silver for siblings Katie and John Archibald in the velodrome.
Never before have a Scottish brother and sister won medals on the same day at the same Commonwealth Games, but with the Archibalds both reaching their respective gold medal races they wrote their names in the history books.
Katie was up first, winning 3000m Individual Pursuit gold to add to her world title, with older brother John completing a remarkable breakthrough to take silver in the 4000m individual pursuit.
In the pool there were a brace of bronze medals for Duncan Scott in the 200m Freestyle and 4x100m Freestyle Relay, the latter alongside Jack Thorpe, Kieran McGuckin and Stephen Milne. There was also silver for Mark Szaranek in the 400m Individual Medley on his Commonwealth debut, to round off a great day for the team.
For full details see the individual feature pieces about Beach Volleyball’s Commonwealth Games debut and Alan Clyne’s progression into the last eight of the Men’s Singles in Squash.
Badminton: Having made sure of their place in the Mixed Team quarter-finals yesterday with 5-0 and 4-1 victories over Pakistan and Sri Lanka respectively, Team Scotland’s Badminton players took to the court against number one seeds India to see who would top Group A. Scotland fielded an experimental line-up and India ultimately prevailed 5-0 despite some close matches. With the quarter-final draw still to made, Eleanor O’Donnell commented: “We don’t know who we’re playing yet but we’ll just look to get as many wins as we can and put in good performances. We’re a young team; for four of us it’s our first Games so we’ll just go out there and enjoy it.”
Boxing: Scott Forrest was first in the ring this afternoon against Elly Ocholla of Kenya. The Lochend Heavyweight looked sharper and stronger than his opponent, taking the bout on a unanimous points decision. He’ll now face regular training partner Cheavon Clarke of England on Tuesday.
After the fight Scott said: “I feel amazing – I’ve never felt better in my life going into these Games. I’ve had good preparation, the first one is done and now it’s onto the rest.
And speaking about facing Clarke next he added: “We’ve trained together four days a week down in Sheffield. We know each other; we know each other’s tricks so it’s going to be some fight to watch.”
In the evening session Middleweight John Docherty and Super Heavyweight, Mitchell Barton faced Jean Alberte of Mauritius and New Zealander Patrick Mailata respectively.
Docherty, gold medallist at the 2015 Commonwealth Youth Games in Samoa boxed well throughout to take the fight on a unanimous points decision. In the final fight of the night, Barton was up against an experienced fighter in the New Zealander. Despite landing several huge punches in a contest that had the Oxenford crowd in raptures, he wasn’t able to dominate and lost out to a unanimous points decision.
In the ring tomorrow, Scotland’s first ever female boxer at a Commonwealth Games, Vicky Glover, faces Dominica’s Valerian Spicer at 12:17hrs (03:17hrs UK Time). Stephen Newns is also back in action against Curlun Richardson of Anguilla at 13:32hrs (04:32hrs UK Time).
Gymnastics: Team Scotland’s women placed fifth in the Women’s Team event, scoring 142.95 points. Both Shannon Archer and Cara Kennedy have qualified for the Women’s Individual All-Around as they finished 11th and 13th; that takes place tomorrow at 16:30hrs (07:30hrs UK time).
Hamish Carter and Frank Baines will also be in action tomorrow in the Men’s Individual All-Around Final which gets under way at 09:00hrs (00:00hrs UK time) tomorrow.
Hockey: After a goal from Amy Brodie was disallowed in the final quarter, the Women’s Hockey team were disappointed not to get the win, instead having to settle for a 0-0 draw against Canada. The women now have two days rest before their next game against Ghana on Monday 9 April at 16:30hrs (07:30hrs UK time).
Team Scotland’s Men’s Hockey squad will be in action tomorrow morning at 11:30hrs (02:30hrs UK time), also playing Canada.
Lawn Bowls: Day two proved successful for Team Scotland’s Bowlers as the team picked up wins in seven of their nine games.
First up came a 21-6 win for Caroline Brown in the Women’s Singles against World Cup Singles Champion Lucy Beere from Guernsey, followed by a 17-17 draw for the Men’s Triples against Malaysia. The later of the morning matches saw a 21-12 win for Caroline against Brunei Darussalam’s Amaliah Matali, and 20-11 to Team Scotland’s Men’s Triples against Norfolk Island.
In the evening session, the Men’s Pairs beat India 17-12 and Norfolk Island 14-12, while the Women’s Fours defeated Wales 22-10. Scotland’s B2/B3 Mixed Pairs and B6/B7/B8 Open Triples teams both faced their Welsh counterparts, with the Mixed Pairs losing 13-7 and the Open Triples team winning 27-4.
Tomorrow will see five more preliminary matches for Team Scotland’s lawn bowlers, as well as four quarter-final matches for Women’s Singles, Men’s Pairs, Men’s Triples and Women’s Fours. The team will be in action all day, starting at 09:00hrs (00:00hrs UK time).
Table Tennis: Gavin Rumgay, Craig Howieson and Colin Dalgleish were back in action at Oxenford Studios in the men’s team competition this morning against Kiribati, the team ending up comfortable 3-0 winners
Drawn against Malaysia in the round of 16 later in the afternoon the trio knew it would be a challenging tie against a team ranked 20 places above them in the ITTF World Rankings. Rumgay was first up in the singles against Chee Feng Leong, in what turned out to be a tight match. Having lost the first game, Rumgay played some spectacular shots, delighting the crowd as he fought back to lead 2-1, before the match was levelled at 2-2. The deciding game went all the way with the Malaysian taking it 12-10.
In the second singles match Howieson faced Muhammad Ashraf Haiq Muhamad Rizal, the Malaysian a 3-0 winner, but Howieson bounced back in the doubles alongside Dalgleish with an impressive 3-0 victory to take the contest to 2-1. Unfortunately Dalgleish fared the same as Howieson, an identical result seeing Malaysia clinch the tie.
As the Team competition concludes for Team Scotland, the players will now look ahead to the start of the Men’s Singles on Tuesday 10 April.
Weightlifting: Jodey Hughes produced a strong performance in the final of the Women’s 58kg category, amassing a total of 160kg having snatched 70kg before producing 90kg in the clean and jerk. Like her teammate, Lisa Tobias who was eighth in the 48kg category yesterday, Hughes only took up weightlifting after being inspired by a home Games four years ago, so was naturally pleased with her efforts and her ninth place finish.
“That stage is just something else; the crowd is incredible and there were so many Scottish flags – I enjoyed every minute of it. I hit my opener, which I was delighted with as I usually miss my first attempt because of nerves! It’s not the total that I was hoping for but I left everything out there on the stage and I’m happy with that.”
Tomorrow: Basketball and Netball are back in action tomorrow, the men taking on Cameroon at 20:00hrs (11:00hrs UK time), whilst the women take on Wales at 18:30hrs (09:30hrs UK time).