The hosts Australia, England and Canada shared 34 medals, including 12 gold, as the competitions in the XXIst Commonwealth Games got underway at Gold Coast on Thursday. Australia led the medals tally with 15 medals, including 5 gold while England were next with 12 medals, including six gold. India ended day one with a gold and a silver as both its medals came from weightlifting.
Taylor Ruck set a Commonwealth Games record to win Canada's first gold medal in Gold Coast, swimming the 200m freestyle in 1:54.81. At the wall, she out-touched Australia's Ariarne Titmus by just four one-hundredths of a second. Another Australian, Emma McKeon, captured bronze in 1:56.26. Ruck's time is now the fastest in the world thus far in 2018. She also took almost two seconds off her own national record which she had set in early March.Less than two hours later, Ruck was back on the podium, this time collecting a silver medal with her teammates in the women's 4x100m freestyle relay. Ruck was the anchor for Alexia Zevnik, Kayla Sanchez and Penny Olejsiak as they posted a cumulative time of 3:33.92 to finish behind only Australia's Games-record 3:30.05. England won the bronze medal, almost 4.5 seconds behind the Canadians.
Joanna Brown battled a star-studded field to win bronze in the women's triathlon. She was the fastest 5 km run to put herself onto the podium with a total time of 57 minutes 38 second. Making the medal even more remarkable? This was her first race in more than a month after she took a hard crash on her bike at the season-opener of the World Triathlon Series.
Brown was 11th out of the water after the 750 m swim. Unsurprisingly, she was a little cautious during the bike leg before laying it all on the line in the run, out sprinting Australia's Ashleigh Gentle and England's Vicky Holland for the final podium spot. Bermuda's Flora Duffy led from start to finish for the gold, finishing in 56:50. England's Jessica Learmouth was 43 seconds back for silver.
Para-swimmer Sarah Mehain also won a silver medal in the women's S7 50m butterfly.
The Canadian men captured silver in the artistic gymnastics team event. The team received a total team score of 248.650 points to finish sandwiched between England (258.950) and Scotland (240.975).
The results also doubled as the qualification round for the individual all-around and individual apparatus finals. Canada's Cournoyer qualified for the all-around final in third place. He also advanced to the finals for rings, vault, parallel bars and the horizontal bar. Morgan got himself into the finals for floor exercise, rings and vault. Clay will be the lone Canadian in the pommel horse final while Paterson joins Cournoyer in the finals for the parallel bars and horizontal bar.Canada won bronze in both the women's and men's team pursuit events.The same quartet of Canadian women raced in qualifying and the final and were three seconds faster than their English opponents to win the bronze medal. The Australians set a Games record as they overtook New Zealand in the race for gold.
For the men, Canadians were third-fastest in qualifying, which pitted them in a head-to-head showdown against Wales for the bronze medal. In the final, Aidan Caves took Jamieson's spot in the lineup as the Canadians finished almost a second ahead of the Welsh quartet. Australia set a Games record to win the gold medal over England in the event.In women's hockey, Australia beat Canada by a solitary goal.
