Ben Proud puts heartbreak behind him to grab gold but Andrew Pozzi flops

Ben Proud
AP Photo/Rick Rycroft

Ben Proud bounced back from his disqualification in his first event at these Commonwealth Games to win gold in the 50metre freestyle today.

The London-born swimmer is the world 50m butterfly champion and described it as “heartbreaking” when he failed to retain his Commonwealth title in that event five days ago.

But the 23-year-old returned to the pool tonight to lead from start to finish, touching just five tenths of a second slower than the Games record of 21.30sec he set in the earlier round.

He said: “I’m very pleased with that. Last night was about the time but that was all about the medal. I am very positive for the rest of the year. It’s been a really special night.”

In the butterfly, a twitch of his leg in the blocks was deemed to be a false start and he was disqualified despite an appeal by his team. This time, there was no mistake. Proud was among the first into the water - this time legitimately - and he always had the advantage as he retained his title.

In the first race of the night, Holly Hibbott won silver in the 400m freestyle behind Australia’s Ariarne Titmus, while Hibbott’s England team-mate Eleanour Faulkner took bronze.

Andrew Pozzi had been hopeful of gold in the 110m hurdles final but clattered the first hurdle and never regained his rhythm as Ronald Levy won the title for Jamaica.

With Olympic and world champion Omar McLeod opting out of the event, Pozzi knew it was a great chance to add another title to the World Indoors gold he won over 60m last month.

“I’d rather not see replays. I was trying to play catch up but I rushed it,” said the 25-year-old. “I started to make some headway but through rushing things made mistakes and it wasn’t good.

“It’s an event where you can’t make a mistake. I made too many and wasn’t good enough. There were several people who did a better job and they got what they deserved.”

Harry Tanfield, 23, joined his younger brother Charlie in becoming a cycling medallist at these Games with silver in the individual time trial behind Australia’s Cameron Mayer.

When told he was initially in the lead as he crossed the line, he said to his coach “am I?” before later admitting: “I felt like I rode really fast but it was a nice surprise.”

Tanfield admitted one home spectator had tried to distract him on his ride against the clock. He said: “There was one guy trying to put me off saying ‘the Aussies are coming’.”

Jersey’s Dan Halksworth finished 26th out of the 56-man field but had the honour of becoming the first athlete to compete in three different sports at three Commonwealth Games.

Halksworth failed to get out of the heats when swimming in the 200m and 400m medley events at Sydney in 2006. The 32-year-old finished 17th in the triathlon at Glasgow 2014 but was third behind the Brownlee brothers, Alistair and Jonny after the cycle stage.

Hayley Simmonds added a bronze for England in the women’s time trial, having shed seven stone from her previous weight in 2011 to become an elite cyclist.

A tearful Simmonds said: “I showed Julian [Winn – her coach] a picture of me from 2011 and he didn’t believe it was me. It’s been hard. There have been times I’ve wanted to go and eat a big cake.”

There are guaranteed medals in the boxing for England with quarter-final victories for Galal Yafai, Cheavon Clarke and Luke McCormack.

And there were a trio of powerlifting medals as Louise Sugden won silver just nine months after taking up the sport, while there were bronze medals for Zoe Newson and Ali Jawad, the latter having battled Crohn’s disease for the past 18 months.

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