Sprint ace breaks 26-year record as Aussies claim nine golds in Glasgow
Ky Robinson and Eleanor Patterson won Commonwealth Games gold medals – and Lachlan Kennedy and Torrie Lewis medalled and broke national sprint records – on one of the most extraordinary days in Australian athletics history.
And outside the heroics on the track and in the field, Australia won gold medals in the pool and at the gymnastics, sending its table-topping haul of gold medals to 35 by the close of day five.
Australia won nine gold medals on a sensational day in Glasgow. Getty.
Kennedy, the 22-year-old sprint powerhouse from Brisbane, won silver in the men’s 100 metres in 9.85 seconds to shatter the national record – the 9.93 set by Patrick Johnson in Japan in 2003.
And Australia’s sprint queen, the Netherlands-based Torrie Lewis, snared bronze in the women’s 100m in 10.99. She had already lowered her national record in the semi-finals by clocking 11 flat, and at a low-key meet in Slovakia last week, where she ran 11.04.
In the men’s 10,000m, Robinson clinched gold to become the first Australian to win the event at the Commonwealth Games since Dave Power in Cardiff in 1958. A day after Australian Rose Davies triumphed in the women’s 10,000m, Robinson joined her as a Commonwealth Games gold medallist as he charged to victory in 27:48.93.
In a stop-start women’s high jump final that played out in torrential rain at Scotstoun Stadium, Patterson claimed gold with a jump of 1.96 metres – a Commonwealth Games record. She was actually already a Glasgow Commonwealth Games gold medallist, having triumphed as an 18-year-old in the Scottish city in 2014.
Australia’s other superstar high jumper, reigning world champion Nicola Olyslagers, collected silver at these Games with a jump of 1.93m.
Believe it or not, even an Australian hammer thrower got in on the medal-winning fun, with Lara Roberts bagging bronze.
Kennedy became the first Australian man to win a Commonwealth Games sprint medal since Michael Cleary picked up bronze in 1962. That was so long ago that the event was called the British Empire and Commonwealth Games, and instead of running 100m they ran 100 yards.
Kennedy finished just two hundredths of a second behind Emmanuel Eseme of Cameroon, who snatched gold in 9.83.
Australia’s fastest man is struggling to fathom the time he ran.
“9.85 is crazy. That’s just nuts,” he told Seven trackside.
“I didn’t realise all the guys were in that good of form, but clearly the track is pretty quick.”
In the semi-finals earlier in the night, he had run 9.94 to slice two hundredths of a second off his lifetime best.
In smashing his newly minted PB in the final, he produced a legal sub-10-second run for the fifth time.
“The sky’s the limit, you know?” Kennedy added.
Lachlan Kennedy and his newly minted Australian record. Getty
“That definitely wasn’t the perfect race. I know I’ve got so much more in the tank.
“But for now I’m going to celebrate and just be happy.”
For Lewis, her string of recent stellar performances and bronze medal are sweet reward for the life-changing move she made to the Netherlands after the Paris 2024 Olympics.
The young phenom moved there, in part, to be coached by Laurent Meuwly, who is also the coach of Olympic and world champion Femke Bol.
“I was so nervous after my semi, being the fastest qualifier. I was just [thinking] I just need to do it again – and better, hopefully – so I’m just glad I could do it,” Lewis told Seven.
“[It was a] perfect race for me. In the next few years, I’ll improve, but right now it’s perfect for me.”
From left to right: silver medallist Nicola Olyslagers, gold medallist Eleanor Patterson and bronze medallist Temitope Simbiat Adeshina after the women’s high jump final. Getty Images
In the men’s 10,000m, Robinson (27:48.93) led home India’s Gulveer Singh (27:49.78) and Isle of Man runner David Mullarkey (27:50.28).
“I decided I would be the guy who picked it up slowly and then in the last kilometre I really go for it and leave nothing left,” the Queenslander said.
“As a kid you look up to the Commonwealth Games and to come away with the win means a lot. That’s a young boy’s dream that’s come true there.”
Trying to comprehend winning two gold medals in Glasgow 12 years apart, Patterson said: “It’s been such a full-circle experience and I was definitely very nervous coming into this.
“It’s been a wild 12 years, but I feel very lucky to be in the position that I am today.”
