Elaine Thompson-Herah completed the women’s sprint double at the Commonwealth Games after she cruised to a win in the 200m final in a Games record 22.02 seconds (0.8m/s) at Alexander stadium in Birmingham, UK on Saturday’s penultimate day of the championships.

Thompson-Herah who had earlier won the 100m was never threatened and led home Nigeria’s Favour Ofili – 22.51 seconds and Namibia’s Christina Mboma -22.80 seconds while the second Jamaican Natalliah Whyte was fourth in 23.06 seconds.

The previous Games record was 22.09 seconds set by Shaunae Miller Uibo of the Bahamas in 2018.

Jamaica won four medals in the afternoon session, two gold and two silver as Janieve Russell retained her women’s 400m hurdles title after running 54.14 seconds with Shiann Salmon taking the silver in a 1-2 for Jamaica, with 54.47 seconds, the same time given to South Africa’s Zeney van der Walt in third place. The South Africa just edged out a third Jamaican, coming from well behind to just get to the line ahead of Rushell Clayton who was in medal position coming off the final hurdle and finished in 54.87 seconds.

Mewnahile, Jaheel Hyde upgraded his bronze medal in the men’s 400m hurdles from four years ago to silver, running 49.78 seconds behind Kyron McMaster of the BVI who retained his title with 48.93 seconds while Alastair Chalmers of Guernsey was third in 49.97 seconds.

Natoya Goule, the bronze medallist four years ago was similarly edged out of a medal after being well set in the 800m as Scotland’s Laura Muir just got to the line ahead of her by the thinnest of margins, one-hundredth of a second – 1:57.87 seconds to 1:57.88 seconds.

Kenya’s Mary Moraa upset the form charts to win with 1:57.07 seconds, edging Olympic and World Championships silver medallist Keely Hodgkinson of England- 1:57.40 seconds.

In diving, Yona Knight-Wisdom was sixth in the men’s 3 metres springboard final with 445.50 points.

-Paul A Reid