In a packed morning of artistic gymnastics events at the Gold Coast, Nile Wilson led the way for Team England in a frenzy of medals in the Coomera Arena as he scooped a gold and silver to take his sensational individual tally in the Games to five.
A total of 16 medals were collected by English athletes on day five, with seven of those coming in the gymnasium.
Alice Kinsella joined Wilson in the golden bracket as her elegantly executed balance beam routine, which scored 13.7, obliterated Australian Georgia-Rose Brown’s second-placed efforts, with Kelly Simm taking bronze.
James Hall who, along with Wilson is enjoying a phenomenal Gold Coast campaign and joined his countrymen on the podium for a second one-two of the Games, in the horizontal bar as England continued to dominate in the gymnastics.
Courtney Tulloch proved he is far from a one-trick pony with a perfect 15.000 in his second routine on the vault to take silver, with Dom Cunningham’s routine enough to make up the top three.
“I came out here to dominate,” an awe-struck Tulloch proudly announced. “I wanted to show everyone that I'm more than capable of just doing rings so I'm happy I got in the rings final and did the vault routine of my life today”.
Later in the morning, Wilson looked set to claim yet another gold medal on the parallel bars, only to finish with second to gold medal-winner Marios Georgiou of Cyprus.
James Willstrop secured his first ever men’s singles title in squash at the Commonwealth Games as he cleanly dispatched of New Zealander Paul Coll in straight games. At the age of 34, and competing in his fourth Commonwealth Games, Willstrop had reached the final twice prior in 2010 and 2014, losing on both occasions. His patience has certainly paid off.
“It was the stuff you dream of,” Willstrop told the BBC. “Most brilliant performances in my career, everything works and clicks. That's happened today. That is one of the best performances”.
In the women’s singles, despite taking opponent Joelle King to a fifth game in a nail-biting final, Sarah-Jane Perry was unable to hang on as she fell to the New Zealander to settle for silver.
In the pool it just wasn’t to be for Team England, as heavy favourite Adam Peaty failed to claim the elusive 50m breaststroke title, a Commonwealth title he is yet to hold, after losing out to South African Cameron Van Der Burgh, a three-time consecutive winner of the event and claiming silver. James Wilby kept up his fantastic individual haul at the Gold Coast by taking bronze in the same event.
James Guy was also successful in the water as he battled stroke-for-stroke against South Africa’s Chad Le Clos, who has three golds thus far, and ultimately took an impressive silver.
Amid Team England’s surprise successes in the weightlifting categories, Owen Boxall and Emily Campbell both lifted admirably to take bronze in the men’s 105kg and the women’s +90kg finals, respectively.
The final two medals came from fairly unsuspecting culprits, as the mixed badminton doubles team clinched bronze with a three-nil sweep of Singapore to give England their first medal in the event in Australia.
The men’s table tennis team repeated the women’s result on Day 4 by claiming bronze after a gutsy final-game comeback over Singapore, who weren’t able to win a single game over the English in either the badminton nor the table tennis on Day 5.