It was sport at its most beautiful and most brutal at Cathkin Braes yesterday as perhaps the prettiest of the Commonwealth Games venues played host to one of its toughest sports.

Mountain biking may have been memorably described by one commentator as road racing's ugly big brother, but that could not apply in any way to a setting which has done more than any other to show why residents of this city, that has long laboured under a grim, industrial image, also proudly tell the world that Glasgow is Gaelic for 'dear green place'.

Yesterday's participants had little opportunity to appreciate that, however, given the relentless nature of a pursuit in which rugged terrain must be relentlessly negotiated without the prospect of resting in the middle of a peloton or in a fellow competitor's slipstream. Just an hour-and-a-half or so of pure, hard graft.

That said, it is still clearly tougher to be cycling in the isolation that was far from splendid for Grant Ferguson throughout most of yesterday's 37.15-kilometre race as he finished top Scot in fifth place, with team-mates Kenta Gallagher and Gareth Montgomerie finishing 10th and 11th respectively.

The 20-year-old Ferguson, who was born in Chertsey but considers Peebles his home town, was considered a medal contender as he went into an event over terrain on which he won the British Championships last year. However, by the end of the first lap a lead group of New Zealand's Anton Cooper and Sam Gaze, along with Canadian Max Plaxton, had pulled away. Australian Dan McConnell did subsequently join them, but while Ferguson pulled clear of the rest of field, try as he might he could not bridge the gap on his own, inevitably falling further and further behind as the quartet urged one another on.

The race ultimately offered the chance for the diminutive Cooper to show that it's not the size of the dog in the fight that matters as he took gold, while Gaze sprinted clear of McConnell at the end of a final lap during which Plaxton had eventually been cut adrift.

The philosophical nature that a sport of this sort inevitably generates was reflected in Ferguson's post-race observations.

"It was a long time out there [on my own], a bit too long, to be honest," he said. "The goal coming into the race was to perform to my best. The medal was something I really wanted, but I know I've done my best so I can't really complain much."

In the women's race, Catharine Pendrel broke clear early on and continued to do so steadily in dominating the race, with Emily Batty making it a one-two for Canada when she got the better of Australia's Rebecca Henderson, her Trek Factory Racing team-mate, in the closing stages of their race-long battle for the minor medals.

First Scot, in seventh place, was Lee Craigie, who, like Ferguson, won the British Championship here last year, the 34-year-old Glaswegian crediting the enthusiasm of her ain folk's support for getting her two places further up the field than she otherwise thought she would finish.

Two days after her 25th birthday Jessie Roberts was second Scot home, just missing out on a top-10 finish, while for all that superstition might have suggested otherwise Kerry McPhee, the first ever Hebridean representative at a Commonwealth Games, could not believe her luck after finishing in 13th place in this championships.

Selected for the team little more than a year after taking up the sport the 28-year-old revealed that she had come close to missing out on claiming her place in island history as a result of a crash which caused a severe arm infection that did not initially respond to treatment.

"This time three weeks ago I was in hospital and at one point I wondered if I was going to get to the Games," she said. "So I'm absolutely thrilled."