Brownlees finish outside medals and world champion swimmer Proud disqualified as England make nightmare start to Commonwealths
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- 05 Apr 2021
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Alistair Brownlee and his brother Jonny failed to get a medal between them as England’s Commonwealth Games campaign got off to a shock start, writes Alex Spink on the Gold Coast.
The men’s triathlon was widely expected to provide the first English gold medal, particularly when Alistair led out of the water and off the bike.
Yet the Yorkshire pair fell away on the 5km run and South African’s Henri Schoeman cruised to victory.
They were not even the best of the Brits as Scotland’s Marc Austin took bronze ahead of Jonny (7th) and Olympic champion Alistair (10th).
“I knew I was capable of it but I was scared to dream about that kind of things,” said Austin. “It was way beyond what I’ve done before but coming into it I knew my form was good.”
The first day of competition on the Gold Coast did provide a silver lining for England with Jess Learmonth finishing runner-up to Bermuda’s Flora Duffy in the women’s triathlon.
But that bucked the trend of a disappointing morning for the English, who topped the medal table in Glasgow last time round.
World swimming champion Ben Proud, expected to retain his Commonwealth title in the 50 metres butterfly, clocked the fastest time - only to then be disqualified for a false start.
Most notable result from a British perspective came from Wales’ women’s hockey team, ranked 26th in the world.
Given little chance against sixth ranked India, the pride of the Principality ran out 3-2 winners, courtesy of Natasha Marke-Jones’ winner with three minutes to go.
