MELBOURNE (Reuters) - David Davies provided Wales with their first swimming gold medal in 32 years to complete Australia’s humiliation in the men’s swimming events at the Commonwealth Games on Tuesday.
With Australia’s injured world record holder Grant Hackett watching, Davies cruised to victory in the 1500 metres freestyle in 14 minutes 57.63 seconds to end Australia’s 48-year domination of the sport’s most gruelling event.
Davies, whose winning time was more than 23 seconds outside Hackett’s best, finished almost half a length clear of Canada’s Andrew Hurd, who took the silver in 15:09.44.
Hercules Prinsloo of South Africa was third in 15:11.88 and the two Australians in the final, Craig Stevens and Travis Nederpelt, finished sixth and seventh respectively.
Davies, who won bronze medals behind Hackett at the Athens Olympics and last year’s world championships in Montreal, became the first Welsh swimmer to win a Commonwealth Games title since Patricia Beavan won the 200m breaststroke in 1974.
His victory also handed Australia their first defeat in the event since 1954 and condemned the host nation, decimated by the loss of Hackett and Ian Thorpe, to the humiliation of failing to win a single gold medal in the individual able-bodied men’s events for the first time in Commonwealth Games history.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.