Commonwealth Games 2022 LIVE: Laura Muir storms to 1500m gold after England win women’s hockey title

The gap stays at 18 seconds. Can they keep this work up or will they be caught?

Teggart (Northern Ireland), Watson (England), Gate (New Zealand), Impey (South Africa) have 28km to go...

The chase group will know they still have a chance.

So Matthew Teggart (Northern Ireland) and Sam Watson (England) both in with a great chance of a medal.

The gap is 23 seconds, can the chase group react? Two English riders chasing, so it’s looking good for an English medal either way.

Another English attack with 36km to go, Watson stringing it out.

A South African up front too, Impie is there, Teggart, Sam Watson and Aaron Gate. Down to four.

A big gap, Culverwell trying to bridge it.

Four up top, if they commit, only one of them will miss out on a medal.

Maybe some desperation from the chasing group? Medals gone if they don’t react soon.

The gap is 25 seconds! 33km to go, this could be over for the chase group?

Cote leads as the breakaway is caught. 40km to go.

Fred Wright then has a little go, joined by Impey, this is bubbling nicely.

Thomas not near the front, bad news for the Welshman.

There's a split in the lead group, 45km to go, the race starts!

Plapp goes first, followed by Niekerk. Thomas trying to cover the move, working hard.

It’s three up top, it’s a big effort from Plapp.

It’s now 1:20 back to the chase group with just under 60km remaining.

And now five minutes to the main peloton.

The majority of the field out of contention completely.

Tour de France winner Thomas joined by Fred Wright in the breakaway, alongside Watson, Culverwell, Hopkins, Swift, Plapp, Cote, Gate and Turner in the breakaway group.

Sam Culverwell, of Guernsey, in the lead group, Thomas and Wright there too.

Mark Cavendish and the peloton are around two minutes 30 seconds behind.

There’s a chasing group, too, it features Scotland’s Mark Stewart, which is just 50 seconds down on the leaders.

72km to go...

The boss of the next Commonwealth Games in Victoria in 2026 has not ruled out making Esports part of the official programme.

The Commonwealth Esports Championships took place on Saturday and Sunday at Birmingham’s International Convention Centre, alongside the regular sporting programme happening in the city and the wider region.

Victoria 2026 chief executive Jeroen Weimar said his organisation had not yet received a formal expression of interest from the Global Esports Federation but added: “We’ve certainly got some of our team looking at the Esports programme running in Birmingham over the weekend and we’re very interested in how that might play and how we might evolve that going forward.

“We’d like to attract a younger audience and ensure we’ve got sports that reflect what people now want to get involved in and participate in and we’d like to surprise and delight people. So we’re actually looking at a whole range of very different sports.

“We see this as a really good opportunity to do something a bit different and to keep advancing not just the engagement of the Commonwealth but the movement of sport more generally.”

Sixteen core sports have already been confirmed for the 2026 Games, which will be held in four regional hubs across the state of Victoria.

Weimar expects that up to three or four more will be added by the end of September.

He said more than 20 international sports federations had made expressions of interest in being part of the programme

We’re into the final 100km of the men’s road race and Geraint Thomas and Fred Wright are tucked into that leading group.

The gap is 30 seconds ahead of the main peloton, where Mark Cavendish sits.

It’s heating up nicely.

Four years of bad luck melted away for Rosie Eccles at the NEC in Birmingham as the Pontypool 26-year-old served up an emphatic second-round stoppage of Australia’s Kaye Scott to claim Commonwealth Games gold in the women’s light-middleweight division.

Eccles had endured a controversial split-decision defeat to England’s Sandy Ryan in the Gold Coast final four years ago and subsequently missed out on a place at the Tokyo Olympics when her body was attacked by a mystery virus and she was denied a second chance by the coronavirus pandemic.

“I’m always a very optimistic person, but even I started thinking I was suffering a bit of a boxing curse,” said Eccles. “I was starting to think it just wasn’t going to happen.

“Things kept coming up out of the blue - I got to the first qualifier and got attacked by a virus, then I was denied the chance to go to Tokyo. To come through all of this and win gold is just amazing.”

Eccles forced Scott, a former world medallist, to take a standing count in the opening round and piled on the pressure in the second, dealing out two more counts that convinced the referee to step in and stop the contest.

“I think I can take my silver medal out of its box now,” added Eccles. “I’ve kept it there for four years, even when I visit school, but now I can say I will get it out because it’s a part of my story, and I can look on it with pride.”

Victory was all the more impressive for Eccles, who is small for a light-middleweight, and will benefit more from the equivalent category at the Paris Olympics, where the upper weight limit is four kilograms lighter.

“Paris is definitely the target now and I will be more powerful at the lighter weight,” added Eccles. “I’m always quite humble, but I think my time has come. You haven’t seen the best of me yet.”