Glasgow: Sprint superstar Usain Bolt anchored the Jamaican team to victory in the Commonwealth Games men’s 4x100-metre relay on Saturday as England topped the medals table for the first time in 28 years.
In a fitting end to the track and field programme at Hampden Park, Jason Livermore, 100-metre gold medallist Kemar Bailey-Cole and bronze medallist Nickel Ashmeade all safely negotiated their legs before the baton was passed on to the towering figure of Bolt.
The 27-year-old, who has won six Olympic gold medals and eight world titles but was making his Commonwealth Games debut, made no mistake with his anchor run in light drizzle on a soaked track, charging through the line in a Games record of 37.58 seconds.
“It means a lot. Commonwealth gold is the only medal missing from my collection,” said Bolt, who did not race the 100 or 200-metre events after a nagging foot injury forced him out of the Jamaican national championships, which served as a trial for these Games.
“I’m happy to be here and sorry I didn’t manage to run the individual events because the energy out here is wonderful.”
In the women’s 4x100-metre relay, Jamaica were also triumphant courtesy of Kerron Stewart, Veronica Campbell-Brown, Schillonie Calvert and double Olympic 100-metre champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce.
Kenya’s middle and long-distance team continued their amazing form. Mercy Cherono and Janet Kisa won gold and silver in the women’s 5,000-metres, the bronze going to England’s 40-year-old Jo Pavey.
Cherono and Kisa’s double feat was then replicated in the men’s 1,500-metres by James Magut and Ronald Kwemoi. Magut’s gold was the men’s third after those in the 5,000 and 3,000-metre steeplechases. Kenyan Julius Yego then claimed victory in the men’s javelin.
With just one day left at the Games, England are top of the medals table with 165, of which 56 are gold, while Australia have 132 in total with 45 in gold.
Only 11 titles are left to be decided on Sunday, leaving England to nudge Australia off the top of the medals table for the first time since 1986 in Edinburgh.
The Games, however, were rocked when it was announced that former women’s world 400-metre champion Amantle Montsho had failed a drugs test.
The Botswanan, who won the world title in 2011, tested positive for the banned stimulant methylhexaneamine after the final of the 400 metres.
England’s boxing team brought home a glut of five golds from 13 finals thanks to Nicola Adams, Joseph Joyce, Savannah Marshall, Scott Fitzgerald and team captain Antony Fowler.
Olympic champion Adams started the gold rush after winning by the narrowest of margins in the women’s flyweight final, beating Northern Ireland’s Michaela Walsh to become the first female Commonwealth boxing champion.
Australia won their fourth successive women’s hockey gold medal with a 3-1 shoot-out win over England. But the English came agonisingly close to a shock win when they led 1-0 with just seconds left of normal time.
England’s Tom Daley won a second successive 10-metre platform diving gold, with Australia’s Esther Qin taking the women’s 3-metre springboard title.
England were dealt a double blow in team events with defeats in the semi-finals of netball and men’s hockey.
The netballers went down 35-34 to New Zealand, with Marai Tutaia sinking the winner in the final two seconds as the defending champion Silver Ferns booked a Sunday final against top-ranked Australia, who defeated Jamaica.
Singapore finished with six table tennis golds out of a possible seven after Zhan Jian won the men’s singles and Feng Tianwei secured her third gold of the Games with Yu Mengyu in the women’s doubles.
