Bronze double for swimmers as Fairweather adds to haul
Another double medal effort in the pool for the New Zealand team at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games with two bronze medal efforts this morning.
Erika Fairweather has claimed her second medal of the Commonwealth Games with a strong finish to take bronze in the 200m freestyle final.
Moments later, fellow Kiwi Hazel Ouwehand got her first Commonwealth Games medal with a third placing in the 50m butterfly final.
Fairweather was sitting fourth with 50m to go but kicked strong to just finish behind Australian duo Mollie O’Callaghan and Lani Pallister.
O’Callaghan, the reigning Olympic champion, took out the race in a time of one minute 54.66 seconds with 400m freestyle winner Pallister 0.35 seconds back.
Fairweather, who took silver in yesterday’s 400m final behind Pallister, was 0.58 seconds behind O’Callaghan having passed England’s Freya Colbert on the final lap.
“It was a hard one. I definitely had to work for that medal tonight,” Fairweather told Sky Sport.
In the 50m butterfly final, Ouwehand and compatriot Zoe Pedersen lined up on the starting blocks after strong showings in the heats.
Australian Alex Perkins won the gold in 25.37 seconds, edging out South Africa’s Erin Gallagher (25.57) with Ouwehand 0.39 back in 25.76 seconds - with all three faster than the gold medal time four years ago.
19-year-old Pedersen finished fifth. Ouwehand’s bronze made it four medals in the pool so for for New Zealand.
“I’m happy. Glad to have gone under 26 [seconds] tonight. Glad to be on that podium. Bringing a medal home to New Zealand. Not quite the colour I wanted but there’s another chance in four years if I’m still around,” Ouwehand told Sky Sport.
There could be another medal in the pool this morning for New Zealand with the 4x100m freestyle mixed relay at 8.11am - after setting the third fastest time.
Elsewhere in Glasgow, the women’s 3x3 team opened with wins over Papua New Guinea (22-6) and Tonga (21-8) and face group rivals England later today.
The women’s pairs lawn bowls team suffered their first defeat after losing to Canada 2-0 in a tiebreak - to sit second in their group after three matches. The B2/B3 mixed pair earned a victory over Wales while singles bowler Shannon Mcilroy bounced back from a defeat yesterday to beat Frederrick Tafatu on Niue in a third-set tie breaker for his second win of the Games.
Boxer Finbar O’Sullivan lost his opening bout in the 60kg division, going down to Scotland’s Nicholas Devlin by unanimous decision.
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