Georgia-Mae Fenton took a risk by not buying her mum a birthday present in the hope a Commonwealth title would be an acceptable substitute. Her gamble paid off as she won gymnastics gold to take back to Kent as a belated gift for Lisa, which will surely mean more than a pot plant or a box of chocolates.
“It’s my mum’s birthday and I was like: ‘What can I get her as a present?’ and I thought: ‘Let’s just do my bar routine really good,’” Fenton said, “She’s not come out here but she’ll be watching from home. My mum was the one who introduced me to gymnastics because I was doing cartwheels all the time at home and she took me somewhere I could do it safely, so I want to say thank you to her.”
The England women’s team is missing many of its star names, with Claudia Fragapane, Ellie Downie and Amy Tinkler all absent through injury, but Fenton rose to the challenge, making it two English golds in 10 minutes by producing a polished routine on the uneven bars to win with 14.600.
The 17-year-old’s victory and Courtney Tulloch’s gold on the rings restored glory to the English gymnastics team after Max Whitlock suffered two shocks in the space of an hour. The double Olympic champion was reminded how it feels not to win, first on the floor, where a ragged routine resulted in him finishing sixth and, more surprisingly, on the pommel horse, his favourite apparatus, where he had to settle for silver.
Alongside building an enviable medal collection, Whitlock often talks of wanting to leave a legacy in the sport through increased success for young British gymnasts but he perhaps did not bargain on being usurped by one of them so soon. Specifically Rhys McClenaghan, an 18-year-old from Northern Ireland, who, as a nine‑year‑old, watched Whitlock compete at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi – and on Sunday beat him to gold on the pommel horse.
“Obviously, Max is one of the best gymnasts that has lived,” McClenaghan said. “I remember watching him as a kid and to be competing against him now is incredible but I’m up there with him now and I’ve overtaken him.” He later tweeted: “Coming for that world title next, Max.”
The teenager’s confidence is admirable but Whitlock insisted he would use defeat on the Gold Coast as motivation for the European championships in Glasgow and world championships in Qatar later this year. “I will learn a lot and get a lot of fire back in me,” Whitlock said. “It may be what I needed to really push me to make sure this doesn’t happen again. I look up to Usain Bolt and Mo Farah because they are legends. To retain a title is much harder than chasing one, there is a lot more pressure.”
“It’s one of those things. We’re human and mistakes happen. I knew I was going to get a low score because I did a repetition move and the deduction was going to be big.”
Tulloch, 22, qualified top and was first out in the rings final. His score of 14.833 was not surpassed as he won his second gold medal of the week to add to the team title. He also offered words of consolation to Whitlock.
“It’s one of the best routines I’ve ever done,” he said. “I got silver last year at the Euros and to come away with two gold medals is fantastic. Max is an amazing role model. Today he made a few mistakes but he will bounce back. You can’t write off Max.”
Miller breaks British hammer record
Nick Miller had double the reason to celebrate his Commonwealth gold by becoming the first Briton to launch the hammer more than 80m, a mark that also surpassed the best his coach, a former international thrower, ever managed.
The 24-year-old, who won silver in Glasgow four years ago, broke his own British record with a throw of 80.26m at the Carrara Stadium on the opening afternoon of athletics on the Gold Coast. He broke the Games record, which had been 77.53m set by Stuart Rendell in Melbourne in 2006, and now has bragging rights over his Swedish coach Tore Gustafsson, who once threw 80.14m.
“I thought I could throw 80m, it is the distance every hammer thrower wants to make,” Miller said. “The best part is that I beat my coach. We joked for years that I’d throw over his best and when 80.26m came up, it was one up on him.”
Meanwhile, the basketball arena played host to a proposal when the England forward Jamell Anderson asked Georgia Jones, who plays for the women’s team, to marry him. Both sides had earlier triumphed, with the women’s team beating Mozambique and the men annihilating Cameroon.
T E A M E N G L A N D 🏴🏀
— Basketball England (@bballengland) April 8, 2018
Those Super Sunday feels when @Jamell_A gets down on one knee & proposes to @gljones4 & she’s says yes! 💍
Congratulations to you both from everyone at Basktball England!
#GC2018Basketball #TeamAndCountry #TogetherWeAreBasketbALL pic.twitter.com/eC2wLcoEHH
