Jess Learmonth won silver for Team England’s first medal on the first morning of the Commonwealth Games in the Women’s Triathlon, with a brilliant display in the Gold Coast. 

The Leeds born 29-year-old put in a brave and courageous performance to claim silver behind Bermuda’s World Champion Flora Duffy. 

The duo were neck and neck for much of the race and it was Learmonth who set the pace from the outset in the water, moving in to an early lead and was first in to transition. 

The World Champion, Duffy, soon joined her and the pair had over a minute’s lead on the rest of the field, before the Bermudan eventually pulled away for the win, claiming gold by 43 seconds ahead of Learmonth. 

Jess was delighted with how the event panned out though and was clearly delighted to claim Team England’s first medal. “I’m ecstatic! It was an eventful race, I knew it would be, with the quality of athletes in the race but it was fun all the same and hot out there – we’ve been used to the rain but it’s come out for us today. 

“Swimming is my strength so I always try to go out quickly and obviously because of that there’s no point sitting back, so I tried to time it from the front and hoping for a break but if it didn’t happen, I’d have tried to run well but it seems I didn’t, though thankfully it didn’t matter today. 

“I couldn’t hear any splits {when running} so I didn’t know if they were catching! I don’t think I ever thought I could win today but I thought I could medal and I literally hung on. 

“We have to recover for Saturday now and I think if it’s like this with the crowd and the sun’s out, it should be pretty good.” 

There was solid performance’s elsewhere from Team England’s women with Vicky Holland narrowly missing out on a medal, finishing fourth. Meanwhile, Sophie Coldwell finished the race strongly moving up through the places and claiming an impressive sixth place.