HOME NATIONS IMPRESS IN COMMONWEALTH GAMES WARM-UP EVENT

A plethora of home nations athletes were in action this morning at the Queensland International Track Classic as they continued their preparations for the Commonwealth Games.

One of the runs of the meet came from Guernsey’s Cameron Chalmers (coach: James Hillier) who held off a strong field to secure victory in the men’s 400 metres in 46.47 seconds, three tenths of a second clear of Botswana’s Karabo Sibanda and 0.34s clear of England’s Rabah Yousif (Carol Williams).

Kyle Langford (Jon Bigg) seemed to have the men’s 800m sewn up after leading from the bell, but needed to dip on the line to hold off a late comeback from Jordan Williamsz. He did take the victory in a time of 1:48.29s from the Australian.

After the race, Langford added: “I thought I had it easily but I had to put that last bit of effort in to take it. I’m pleased to get the win; we’ve been putting a lot or hard work in during the build-up so it is a good result on the back of it.”

Elsewhere, Laura Weightman (Steve Cram) topped a home nations heavy women’s 1500m field in 4:05.89s from Wales’s Melissa Courtney (Rob Denmark) and Scottish duo Eilish McColgan (Liz Nuttall) and Steph Twell (Geoff Wightman).

In the shorter women’s middle distance race, Sarah McDonald (David Harmer) showed her credentials with an exceptional late burst to nearly win the race, just to be edged out to New Zealand’s Angela Petty, with a time of 2:03.13s.

England’s 4x100m women’s relay team, consisting of Asha Philip (Steve Fudge), Dina Asher-Smith (John Blackie), Bianca Williams (Lloyd Cowan) and Corinne Humphreys (Ryan Freckleton) earned victory in 43.20s, pipping Australia to victory.

Asher-Smith went on to secure her second victory of the day as she won the 100m shortly after in 11.31s, with Northern Ireland’s Amy Foster fourth in 11.81s.

Speaking after her 100m success, Asher-Smith said: “You need to get out there with these early performances. Usually I’d have more time to polish up.

“But I felt good; it’s just a shame about the strong headwind but it is all building well into my first Commonwealth Games. I’m really excited to compete in the multi-games environment once more.”

The men’s 4x100m relay team followed suit as Richard Kilty, Zharnel Hughes (Glen Mills), Adam Gemili (Rana Reider) and Harry Aikines-Aryeetey (Benke Blomkvist) clocked 38.31s in blustery conditions to win by more than half a second from the Canadian quartet.

Speaking after helping the team to victory, Gemili said: “It’s nice to have a shake out and get racing. I’m happy but obviously would have liked to have run a little quicker. Unfortunately, it was quite windy so that affected the race.

“I’m really happy with the relay. The boys ran very well. I was perhaps a little tight on my leg but we raced well as a team.”

Gemili was pushed by Leon Reid (James Hillier) in the men’s 100m, the duo finished second and third respectively, with Aikines-Aryeetey fourth in his heat, which was won by Yohan Blake. James Arnott was the highest finishing para-athlete, third in his heat in 11.87s, with Wales’ James Ledger and Morgan Jones coming in just behind.

Hughes meanwhile blitzed the field to win the 200m in 20.23s from Reid finishing, 0.6 seconds ahead of everyone else to show the fantastic form he is in heading to the Games. Matthew Hudson-Smith (Lance Brauman) came second in his heat in 20.98s.

After hitting the last few hurdles, newly crowned World Indoor Champion Andrew Pozzi (Benke Blomkvist) finished fourth in 13.99s, with Ronald Levy winning in 13.83s (-1.8), with David King (James Hillier) second.

The women’s 100m hurdles, containing strong home nations representation, saw Tiffany Porter agonisingly miss out on victory by 0.04s to Australia’s Brianna Beahan (13.41s), with fellow Englishwoman Alicia Barrett seventh in 14.03s.

Jack Green (June Plews) and Jacob Paul (Marina Armstrong) locking out the top two spots in the men’s 400m, Green’s second victory down under after winning the Brisbane International last week.

In the field, there was success for Scotland and Wales in the men’s hammer throw as the home nations locked out the first three positions, with Scotland’s Chris Bennett (Michael Jones) coming out on top after throwing of 74.08m.

Osian Jones threw a personal best 71.62m to secure second place, with Mark Dry placing third, recording a distance of 69.66m.

Nathan Douglas (Aston Moore) stepped up his preparation for the games by taking victory in the men’s triple jump with a leap of 16.41m and in a hotly contested long jump, Northern Irishman Adam McMullen was fifth after jumping 7.78m (+3.5). Shara Proctor was the highest placed home nations athlete in the women’s long jump with a windy 6.84m (+2.3) her best mark.

Adam Hague (Trevor Fox) ended the men’s pole vault in second place after achieving a height of 5.30m, with Ben Gregory (Aston Moore) fifth, John Lane (Toni Minichiello) sixth and Curtis Mathews (Lawrence Moore) eighth.

For all results, click HERE