Australia has dominated in the pool on day one of the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, winning five out of a possible seven gold medals.
Advance Australia Fair got plenty of airtime at the Sandwell Aquatics Centre as Elijah Winnington, Ariane Titmus, Tim Hodge, Zac Stubblety-Cook and the mixed 4x100m freestyle relay swimmers all stood atop the dais.
Australia swept the medals in two events, the men's 400m and women's 200m freestyle, while Kiah Melverton and Emily Beecroft won silver in the women's 400m IM and S9 100m freestyle respectively.
Winnington started the gold rush, leading home compatriots Sam Short and Mack Horton by over two seconds in the 400 metres freestyle.
It was far closer for golden girl Titmus though, who was given a serious test by training partner Molly O'Callaghan in the 200m free despite swimming a new Games record of 1:53.89.
"It is fun to have a race," Titmus told Channel 7 afterwards.
"Moll has been killing in training, she is young, feisty, hungry I knew she would be there."
It was fun to watch too as Titmus, who led from the start, was hauled back in by the 18-year-old O'Callaghan, eventually edging her out by just 0.12 seconds.
"I love it, that we are in a country where we have depth like this," Titmus said.
"There will always be someone there. There's always someone coming through.
"That makes the sport exciting."
Maddie Wilson surged back in the final lap to complete Australia's second sweep of the night, edging out England's Freya Anderson.
Hodge picked up Australia's first para-swimming medal in the S9 100m backstroke before Emily Beecroft took silver in the women's S9 100m free, a race notable for being Ellie Cole's final race in Australian colours.
"It just felt like every other race," she told Channel 7 of the build up.
"At the end, knowing it was all over was pretty hard to accept."
In the 200m breaststroke, world record holder Stubblety-Cook added a Commonwealth title to his World and Olympic crowns.
To cap the night, William Xu Yang, Kyle Chalmers, O'Callaghan and McKeon combined to ease to the first ever Commonwealth Games mixed 4x100m freestyle relay title.
The only possible blemish on the record for Australia was that none of the three swimmers in the men's 50m butterfly progressed through to Sunday's final.
However, there will be a full contingent in the women's 100m butterfly, as McKeon led Breanna Throssell and Alex Perkins in the semi finals.
Brad Woodward, Mitch Larkin and Josh Edwards-Smith all qualified for the men's 100m backstroke final and Chelsea Hodges, Jenna Strach and Abbey Harkin made it a clean sweep for the 50 metre breaststroke.
All up, Australia's swimmers won five golds, four silvers and two bronzes on day one.
The rest of Australia's three gold medals won on day one came in the velodrome, while Matt Hauser claimed bronze in the men's sprint triathlon.
Look back on how all the action unfolded in our live blog.
Key events
- 🥇 Swimming: Gold for Australia!
- 🥇 Swimming: Gold for Australia's Zac Stubblety-Cook!
- 🥇 Track cycling: Two golds and a bronze for Australia!
- 🥈 Swimming: Silver for Australia's Emily Beecroft!
- 🥇 Swimming: Gold for Australia's Tim Hodge!
- 🥇 Swimming: Gold, silver and bronze for Australia AGAIN!
- 🥈 Swimming: Silver for Australia's Kiah Melverton!
- 🥇 Track cycling: Australia's first gold of the 2022 Commonwealth Games!
- 🥇 Swimming: Gold, silver and bronze for Australia!
- 🥉 Triathlon: Australia's first medal! Bronze for Matt Hauser
Live updates
By Kelsie Iorio
What to watch next
Day one is complete and it's well and truly bedtime over in Birmingham now.
But if you're anything like me, you'll be spending tonight on the couch with a cuppa watching day two in all its glory.
Here's what to catch our Aussies in tonight and into tomorrow morning (any times listed below are in AEST):
- Swimming (lots of heats first up, before finals start around 4am)
- Hockey
- Boxing
- Athletics (the marathons are starting — will Madi de Rozario repeat her gold medal-winning Tokyo performance?)
- Netball
- Rugby sevens
- Gymnastics (the women's team final and individual qualifications start around 6pm tonight, so Australia could be a medal chance here)
- Lawn bowls
- Table tennis
- Beach volleyball (Taliqua Clancy and Mariafe Artacho del Solar won silver in Tokyo. Can they get the gold in Birmingham?)
- Cycling
- 3x3 basketball
- Badminton
- Squash
That's all from us for now. We'll be back with you early Sunday morning.
By Kelsie Iorio
Lawn bowls: All Aussie teams still with the chance to advance
The men's triples team has had a clean sweep in the first stages of the lawn bowls competition — Barrie Lester, Carl Healey and Ben Twist defeated teams from Niue and the Cook Islands, 29-7 and 25-15 respectively.
The para men's pairs also made a strong start — Damien Delgado and Chris Flavel beat New Zealand 17-7 and drew with South Africa 12-12.
In the women's singles, 24-year-old Ellen Ryan started with a 21-7 win over Kenya's Eunice Wambui Mbugua but lost to Guernsey's Lucy Beere 11-21 in the second game.
Aaron Wilson and Corey Wedlock also had a win and a loss in the men's pairs, beating Guernsey 29-7 but losing to Fiji 16-27.
The women's fours team ended up in a draw with Botswana in round one, 15-15, but jagged a win over Fiji in the second game.
There's only been one match so far in the para women's pairs, but Cheryl Lindfield and Serena Bonnell are off to a winning start with a narrow 16-15 victory over Scotland.
By Kelsie Iorio
Table tennis: More promising starts on day one
More early wins for Australia. We love to see it.
Our women's table tennis team beat Malaysia 3-0 and Mauritius 3-0 overnight in the group stage of the competition.
The men's team lost 1-3 to Malaysia in their first match, but came through with a 3-2 win over Canada after that.
The women's team will face the Maldives next, and the men's team play Mauritius.
By Kelsie Iorio
Which sport or athlete are you most looking forward to watching at the Games?
Hit that big blue comment button and let us know.
By Simon Smale
Forget about face masks and COVID bubbles: Birmingham embraces the 'free' Commonwealth Games
Our reporter on the ground, Amanda Shalala has been out and about in Birmingham this morning, marveling at the lack of COVID-19 protocols that are in place in what has been described as a "free" Games.
By Kelsie Iorio
Netball: Recapping the Diamonds' opening match
ABC Sport reporter Brittany Carter is in Birmingham, and has taken a closer look at the Diamonds' efforts overnight.
The Aussies beat Barbados 95-18 — a pretty convincing win — and will go up against Scotland next.
Here's Brittany's wrap of the match:
By Kelsie Iorio
Triathlon: What's the deal with that challenge?
If you're just waking up, Aussie Matt Hauser won bronze in the men's sprint triathlon last night — our first medal of the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
England's Alex Yee crossed the line first, followed by Hayden Wilde from New Zealand — but the final seconds of the race were a little weird.
Wilde was in the lead with Yee hot on his heels, but all of a sudden, gave his competitor a high five and let him pass.
We soon found out that he'd been given a ten-second penalty for some kind of infringement related to his helmet in the bike leg of the race.
THEN, well after the race had ended, it was revealed that Wilde would protest the penalty — a process that could change the outcome of his silver medal.
But because Wilde let Yee pass and the Englishman won by more than ten seconds, it's almost certainly not going to be a swap-of-medals situation if the ruling goes in Wilde's favour — it's more likely that they'll both be gold medallists.
All of this could take up to 30 days to be ironed out so we'll have to wait and see what happens.
By Simon Smale
Hockey: Epic comeback alert
Scotland were leading New Zealand 5-1 when I switched over to watch it a short time ago.
It's now 5-5 with four minutes left in the match.
Incredible comeback from the Black Sticks.
EDIT: The match has finished 5-5. What a game.
By Kelsie Iorio
3x3 Basketball: Australia's women notch up another win
That's two from two for the Aussie women.
They've beat Kenya 21-15 in their second prelim pool match.
By Kelsie Iorio
Sorry, can't hear you from the top of the medal tally
By Kelsie Iorio
Badminton: A quick look at the results from overnight
Australia has gone down to Sri Lanka in their group stage showdown, 2-3.
Hsuan-Yu Chen beat Vidara Suhasni Vidanage in the women's singles section and again in the doubles alongside playing partner Gronya Somerville, but losses in the mixed doubles, men's singles and men's doubles meant it wasn't enough to get over the line.
Our next group stage opponent is Pakistan — that's on this evening if you're watching in Australia — and then India early tomorrow morning.
By Kelsie Iorio
3x3 Basketball: Australia's wheelchair team wins first match
Good start from our wheelchair 3x3 basketballers!
Australia beat Scotland 12-5 not too long ago.
The Aussie women's team are playing as we speak — they're currently up 7-4 over Kenya in their second pool match after beating Scotland 21-9 earlier.
The men's team will play Trinidad and Tobago later on.
By Simon Smale
Swimming: Sometimes it's not all about gold though
There has been nobody more excited to medal on day one than Scotland's Ross Murdoch.
This is his reaction to winning bronze in the 200m breaststroke.
Awesome.
Wholesome.
Bronze-ome
By Kelsie Iorio
Facts
We always rip it up in the pool...
- Natty
I mean...
And it isn't over yet. Tonight and tomorrow morning (our time) will be stacked with Aussies competing for more medals so don't miss that.
By Simon Smale
Swimming: Australia wins five out of seven possible golds on day one
Of the seven gold medals on offer in the pool this evening, Australia has won five of them.
By Simon Smale
Swimming: 'It's important to put yourself under a bit of discomfort sometimes'
Here's the gold medalists.
Lead off swimmer Will Yang first.
"I don't know. I don't even know what happened actually," he says.
"I couldn't see the [timing] board, but 48.8. OK, that can be worked on.
"Hopefully I can go for quicker tomorrow. Otherwise, today, got the job done."
Kyle Chalmers simply says it's "amazing", while O'Callaghan says of her split "It's OK. Room for improvement."
Emma McKeon says that its nice to test herself with back-to-back swims.
"Gave me a bit of a flashback to Tokyo," she says.
"It's kind of nice to just get it done, bang, bang, bang rather than spread out over two or three hours.
"I just stick to my process, and I like a challenge really.
"It's important to put yourself under a bit of discomfort sometimes."
She also says that she forgot to take her necklace off before racing, which was the cause of much speculation in the commentary box.
By Kelsie Iorio
An appreciation post: Manicures of the Commonwealth Games
And these are only a handful of the ones we've seen so far:
I reckon we might see even more cool nail art when the athletics starts. Love to see it.
By Simon Smale
🥇 Swimming: Gold for Australia!
Emma McKeon and Mollie O'Callaghan both did splits of 52 seconds, which is absurdly quick.
Australia were not fastest off the start with England taking a rapid start, but once Kyle Chalmers got in the water and turned the after burners on to blast back level, it was a foregone conclusion.
McKeon only just got out the water from her 100 fly semi and once again looked very smooth in the water.
That's McKeon's ninth Commonwealth Games medal. Not bad.
By Simon Smale
Swimming: Mixed 4x100m relay final
Australia has a stunning team line up for this race and you'd expect them to streak away comfortably.
Australia have completely changed their lineup from the heats, such is the strength in depth of this squad.
William Xu Yang, Kyle Chalmers, Mollie O'Callaghan and Emma McKeon will swim in that order.
The men go first to make sure that there's clear water for the women to race in later on, but there's no prescribed order that they have to swim it in, that's just been the tried and tested method.
By Simon Smale
🥇 Swimming: Gold for Australia's Zac Stubblety-Cook!
Stubblety-Cook adds the Commonwealth Games title to all his other accolades!
That's World Champion, Olympic Champion, World Record holder and now Commonwealth Champion.
Call the builders Zac, you're gunna need a new pool room.
His time was 2:08.07.
It was not even close to his world record, he came from a long way back and measured his effort perfectly to claim gold ahead of reigning champ James Wilby.
Matty Wilson gets pipped to fourth by an elated Scot, Ross Murdoch, by 0.17 seconds.
