Commonwealth Games: Top 10 moments from Glasgow, including Kurtis Marschall, Georgia Baker, and netball upset

There were tears of joy, historic gold medal results, and stunning upsets across a packed 10 days in Glasgow. Here’s our pick of the 10 most memorable moments at the Commonwealth Games. SAM I AM Sam Williamson won the gold and got the kiss to seal a remarkable comeback story. After a surprise win in the men’s 100m breaststroke final at Glasgow’s Tollcross International Swimming Centre, Williamson made his way to the gallery of poolside snappers where girlfriend, Swedish photographer Linnea Lindberg, put down her camera and embraced the Australian star. “It is a fairytale and it’s something the two of us are going to remember forever,” Williamson said of Linberg, who was working for the Australian media team at the Games. “I reckon she’s got more tears in her eyes than I do at the moment. “If we get one good photo from tonight, it’s all worth it. “Just having her on pool deck ... having mum, dad, my sister in the stands, everyone back home watching. This is for all of us. I love you all.” The pair met at the Paris Olympics two years ago. Williamson ruptured the patella tendon in his knee just over a year ago in a training mishap attempting a box jump while training in the gym. He had to relearn how to walk, let alone swim. TAYLOR MADE FOR GOLD The script has been flipped. Hayley Lewis is now the mum of a gun. Kai Taylor, 22, the son of Australian swimming great Lewis, won from lane one in the men’s 200m freestyle, 36 years after mum captured five gold medals and a bronze as a 15-year-old at the Auckland 1990 Commonwealth Games. Taylor went out hard and the bold approach worked as he claimed his first individual gold, having been a part of Australia’s triumphant 4x200m relay team earlier in the Games. Mum went wild in the stands, as did his coach Dean Boxall, who told Channel 7: “Like mother, like son.” “If you’ve got a lane you’ve got a chance, that’s what I’ve always told myself,” Taylor said. “I made my first-ever team in 2023 from lane 8. “I backed my training and thought you know what, I’m not going to have any regrets. I don’t want to look back and go, ‘maybe I could have gone out harder’. If I went out too hard and died, at least I gave it a shot. Just managed to hold on. “Dean and I have spoken about it…from the outside lane it’s hard to see people. Just go out hard and hold on.” ROCKET MAN’S TRIPLE TREAT WA’s Kurtis Marschall became the first-ever three-time Commonwealth men’s pole vault champion in a dominant final performance in which he set a new Games record. The blustery conditions that affected Nina Kennedy a night day earlier eased as Marschall completed four perfect jumps to claim gold, with no other finalists clearing 5.80m. With his title secured, Marschall cleared 5.85m on his second attempt to take the long-standing record set by Steve Hooker 20 years ago in Melbourne. “It’s honestly what I’ve been dying to do the last couple of years. I really wanted to defend my title, go back-to-back, back-to-back,” said Marschall, who has described vaulting as “having the best seat in a rocket ship and then hanging on for dear life”. “It’s an honour every time I get to put on the green and gold. I’m planning on never quitting. I just want to do this forever and go to every Comm Games ever.” BAKER COOKS UP FIVE GOLDS Georgia Baker’s gold medal in the 10km scratch race put the Australian in rare air. Despite it being an individual event, she benefited from having two other Australians in the field, with Alyssa Polites doing the hard yards after an early move allowing Baker to sprint for the line ahead of Wales’ Anna Morris and New Zealand’s Samantha Donnelly. “That was our dream run,” said Baker, who was Australia’s flag bearer in the closing ceremony. “I was definitely wanting the finish line to come, that’s for sure. I’m so happy.” Victory elevated Baker to an illustrious group of Anna Meares, Matt Glaetzer and pursuit specialist Brad McGee with five Commonwealth gold medals. “You know what, just to be alongside that is great,” Baker said. “It’s not something that I’ve been striving for. It’s obviously great to be in that list. Any medal is great. “I was like, wow, I didn’t realise that statistic. It’s very good company and it’s an honour to be in that list.” Baker combined with Polites, Claudia Marcks, Felicity Wilson-Haffenden and Sophie Edwards to win gold in the women’s 4000m team pursuit. West Australian pair Oliver Bleddyn and Conor Leahy took gold and silver in the men’s individual pursuit final, with teammate James Moriarty taking bronze in a podium clean sweep. SWEET REVENGE AT THE VELODROME Australia took out a sweet victory over bitter rivals England in the men’s team cycling sprint and couldn’t help but take a parting shot at a former teammate. Ryan Elliott, Leigh Hoffman and Daniel Barber ran over England in a lightning time of 29.644 for gold in a final that should have featured West Australian-raised Matthew Richardson. Richardson defected from Australia to Great Britain after the Tokyo Olympics and had described the two cycling programs as like comparing Hogwarts of Harry Potter fame to a high school and was forced out of the Commonwealth Games after an accident in a keirin race in Japan a week earlier. Hoffman didn’t hold back. “I think maybe he got his Hogwarts invitation left in the mail. It would have been great to line up against him, but I’m sure we’ll come up against him at world championships,” he said. “It was horrible, I’ve seen video of the crash, it’s pretty serious. I would have loved for him to come here and race and see how Danny (teammate Danny Barber) and I stack up. “It would have been great if he stayed in Australia, but his heart was obviously never always in it - so good riddance.” IT’S A MEGA POOL PARTY The Dolphins morphed into the Orcas as they claimed another nine gold medals to make it 37 in total, leaving in their wake the previous record of 28 they set on the Gold Coast in 2018. Another 16 silver and 23 bronze made it 76 medals in total. South Africa was the next best on the gold medal board with six and second overall with 22. Veteran Kyle Chalmers and the appropriately named Greg Armbruster dead-heated in a men’s 50m butterfly final in which no silver medal was awarded. Cam McEvoy’s bronze gave Australia a sixth podium clean-sweep in the pool. The pair both touched the wall in 22.73sec with McEvoy next in 22.92. The tie meant Chalmers passed Ian Thorpe’s all-time record by capturing a 10th Commonwealth Games gold medal. Team Australia delivered a record-breaking display in the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay, powering to gold and setting a new Commonwealth Games record, in their eighth consecutive win in the event. The Australian quartet made up of Meg Harris, the retiring Shayna Jack, Alex Perkins and Mollie O’Callaghan combined explosive speed and flawless baton-like changeovers in the pool to produce a dominant performance and record time of 3:31.40. Harris was the standout individual, equalling an Australian record with six gold medals at the one Commonwealth Games. UPSET OF THE GAMES For the first time in Commonwealth Games history, the Australian Diamonds missed out on making the gold medal match after they were stunned by Jamaica in a semifinal. In a low-scoring affair, West Australian Sophie Garbin struggled in attack shutdown by Shamera Sterling-Humphrey and Latanya Wilson, who helped the Adelaide Thunderbirds to the Super Netball title this year and were subbed out after the first term. WA’s Courtney Bruce copped a big elbow early on and struggled against Romelda Aiken-George but was influential late with two big defensive wins to almost help the Aussies force overtime. Sophie Dwyer had a chance to tie it up and force extra time from long range, but the ball bounced off the rim. Jamaica stormed the court in ecstasy over their 46-45 victory, celebrating as if they’d already won the gold medal. “We will wrap our arms around her. It’s a full team loss, it’s not on one person. We should not have been in the position where we needed to shoot a goal after the siren,” Diamond Kate Moloney said. “Really disappointing but credit to Jamaica, they really came out and really gave it to us,” she said. “We probably just didn’t execute the way we needed to.” The Diamonds took a consolation bronze after beating England in their final match. GREEN AND GOLD FLASHES Australia’s men’s 4x100m relay team of Lachlan Kennedy, Josh Azzopardi, Calab Law and Rohan Browning became the first gold medallists in the event since 1974 in what has been described as the dawn of a new track sprint era. Having become the fastest-ever Aussie in the 100m final with a time of 9.85 seconds, Kennedy burst out of the blocks to set up a healthy advantage off the turn before an aggressive handover to Azzopardi. He and Law kept up the momentum as Browning charged home to hold off a fast-finishing field, including Olympic champions Canada, to win by 0.04 seconds in a time of 38.07. “I don’t think I’ve ever run quite that scared in my life. I was just running for that line,” Browning said. “Four years ago I tripped over and got the team DQ’d in the heats, and I had to carry that burden, so this hopefully wipes the slate clean, and this is probably the most special moment of my career. “These guys did all the hard work, put me in a winning position. All I had to do was hold on.” It was the crowning glory of an incredible athletics meet for the Aussies who tasted success across the board. Rose Davies completed a remarkable double to claim gold in the 5000m and the 10,000m, becoming a real rival for long-distance star Jess Hull who won two silver. The pair embracing and the wild grin on Hull’s face as they finished one-two will be one of the lingering images of the 2026 Games. Meanwhile, Torrie Lewis nabbed a shock bronze medal in the women’s 100m, breaking a national record in the process to ensure Kennedy wasn’t the only star to write themselves into the nation’s annuals after his 100m silver-medal time of 9.85 seconds broke Patrick Johnson’s 2003 record of 9.93s. WALK IN THE PARK Isaac Beacroft, budding AFL player cum Commonwealth Games athlete, was not going to be dictated to in the men’s 10,000m walk final. The 19-year-old exchanged words with Kenyan Stephen Kihu, before beating him home for the gold medal. “I knew he’d be there waiting for me to kick because he was taunting me the entire race, telling me to go around and lead it,” Beacroft said. “I was just saying, ‘In your dreams champ, this is not happening today.’ “I knew he’d come back around me and then as soon as he did I thought I’d really drop the hammer and see if I could break him, and I did.” Beacroft, who was a member of Greater Western Sydney’s AFL Academy until he was 16, described the banter with the Kenyan as a “friendly” rivalry even though it appeared heated. “We were moving pretty quick at some stage and he was just telling me, ‘go around, go around’,” Beacroft recalled. “I wasn’t going to go around. I wanted it to be slow. “You saw the kick that I had at the end so I guess he backed himself at the end and so did I. “If someone’s going to give it to you, I’m going to give it back.” Beacroft won in 38 minutes 45.51 seconds from Kihu and Canada’s decorated Evan Dunfee. THE MEDAL G.O.A.T. South African Chad Le Clos burst on to the international scene at the 2012 London Olympics when he beat swimming legend Michael Phelps to win a gold medal int he 200m butterfly at the 2012 London Olympics. American icon Phelps was a 14-time Olympic champion at the time and had not lost in the event since 2001. Almost a decade and a half on and Le Clos has become the most decorated athlete in Commonwealth Games history having won his 21st medal. The 34-year-old helped secure a bronze for South Africa in the 4x100m freestyle relay on Friday at the Tollcross International Swimming Centre. He added a 4x100m mixed medley relay silver. The breakdown is seven gold, five silver and nine bronze medals across five Commowealth Games, starting in Delhi in 2010 at the age of 18 where he earned five medals, followed by seven medals in Glasgow in 2014. “It was emotional, but I think those first two medals (in Glasgow 2026) were just a little bit more just because I had to get over the hump and tonight I just had to stay cool and bring it home,” he said after the relay. “The way the boys and girls swam... they swam their hearts out. They kept saying ‘we’re doing this for Chad’ before they walked down and it just means the world to me.” The 34-year-old also won Olympic medals in Rio in 2016 and competed in Tokyo and Paris. He will attempt to qualify for a fifth Olympics in Los Angeles in two years’ time.

Commonwealth Games: Top 10 moments from Glasgow, including Kurtis Marschall, Georgia Baker, and netball upset

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