INCREDIBLE scenes at the Gold Coast as Australia win a medal before the Opening Ceremony even takes place. With only seven female fighters entered into the women’s -51kg weight class, 19-year-old local Queenslander Taylah Robertson was the lucky one who earned a bye into the semi-finals, enough to assure her of a medal. While the incident had a school sports day feel to it, assurances were given last night that no warm balls were involved.
IN these times of marginal gains, it is pleasing that Katie Archibald – who goes for gold tomorrow in the individual pursuit – still puts store on blind superstition. “You can say ‘well if I brush my teeth to the left rather than the right, next time it will be fine’. There’s a lot of voodoo surrounding it.”
THE logistics of this Commonwealth Games boggle the mind. So vast is the land mass of Australia that a sport, basketball, which will take place in Townsville, three hours away BY PLANE from the Main Press Centre in the Gold Coast, a bit like arranging a multi-sports event in Glasgow with one of the events taking place in Moscow. On the other hand, diving at the Glasgow games did take place in Edinburgh and at least no journeys along the M8 are involved.
IT has been the calm before the storm these last few days – quite literally as it turned out. Slowly, though, games fever is taking hold. We even saw a herd of cows with ‘Go Aus’ spraypainted on them. Talk about milking the moment.
AMAZING scenes at the Carrara Stadium, where the press centre is a converted hall surrounded on either side by an all-seater stadium. There was a huge round of applause as I finished this diary.
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