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

An update from Coventry Stadium, where it has not been an enjoyable rugby sevens campaign for most of the home nations so far...

In the women’s competition, both England and Scotland have failed to advance to the quarter-finals. In Pool A, England thumped Sri Lanka 57-0 but defeats to New Zealand and Canada sealed their fate, while Pool B saw Scotland overcome South Africa but they’d already been defeated by Fiji and Australia to end their chances of qualification.

On the men’s side, Wales lost to Fiji and Canada, meaning beating Zambia was only enough for third in Pool C and England’s opening defeat to Samoa proved costly in Pool A as they too finished third after beating Sri Lanka but losing to New Zealand.

Scotland’s men were the lone home nation to advance to the last-eight as wins over Tonga and Malaysia saw them through as Pool B runners-up despite defeat to South Africa.

Kennedy Leonard honed her basketball skills in the gym where superstar Michael Jordan trained but is revelling in the chance to make her Dundee-born mum proud at the Commonwealth Games.

Leonard, 25, is part of the Scotland women’s 3×3 basketball team in Birmingham, but her entire childhood was spent on the other side of the Atlantic.

She was born in New Jersey in September 1996 and her family moved to Chicago nine months later, just before Jordan embarked on his ‘Last Dance’ season with the Chicago Bulls which ended with a sixth NBA title.

“When you grow up in Chicago, or spend time any time in Chicago, you’re automatically tuned into the Bulls and Michael Jordan in that era,” Leonard told the PA news agency.

“So it was cool to grow up and be surrounded by that and to be that close to something so iconic.”

A brilliant run by Jessica Stenson and she surges up the final hill to take a superb GOLD in the women’s marathon in a time of 2:27:31

A huge smile on her face as she crosses the line - after two previous Commonwealth bronzes, she’s now a champion. The Australian broke all her rivals with some incredibly hard running, with Margaret Wangari Muriuki of Kenya the one who survived longest but she finishes 29 seconds behind in silver.

Helalia Johannes is 68 seconds behind the winner to take bronze. The Namibian won gold four years ago but at 41 years old, it’s bronze this time.

A quick update from the weightlifting, where Team England narrowly missed out on a medal in the men’s 55kg category.

Aniq Kasdan of Malaysia took gold with a Games record combined total of 249kg, while India’s Sanket Sargar claimed the silver medal, with Sri Lanka’s Dilanka Isuru Kumara grabbing bronze.

England’s Ben Hickling, 2, finished fourth with a combined total of 212kg (93kg snatch and 119kg clean and jerk).

“I don’t have many words to describe it, to be honest. The crowd were absolutely electric and I loved every moment of it,” said Hickling.

“We all have expectations and want to hit PBs. It wasn’t quite my day today on snatch, nerves got the better of me but I chilled out for the clean and jerk and really used the crowd to my advantage.”

This is now looking like Jessica Stenson’s race to lose. Having dropped Helalia Johannes, the Australian has put her foot on the accelerator again to distance Margaret Wangari Muriuki - she’s running out front on her own with a couple of kilometres to go.

Another Australian gold incoming it seems.

Adam Peaty shook off a few nerves on his return from injury to top the timesheet in the men’s 100 metres breaststroke heats and cruise into Saturday night’s semi-finals.

Peaty missed last month’s World Championship after fracturing a bone in his foot in a freak training accident in May, but he showed no persisting issues in his first outing at the Commonwealth Games.

He clocked 59.92 seconds – the only swimmer to breach the one-minute barrier – to win his heat and is well poised to claim a hat-trick of titles in his favoured event after prevailing in 2014 and 2018.

Johannes dropped! The defending champion, the 41-year-old from Namibia has been dropped by the front group. Now there were two...

It looks like Stenson v Muriuki in a head to head race for gold. We’re entering the final kilometres.

We’re past the two-hour mark in the women’s marathon and the front trio - Jessica Stenson, Margaret Wangari Muriuki and Helalia Johannes - still all look strong. It’s actually Stenson setting the pace. They’ve passed 35km, so 7km to go - that’s a little over 4 miles in old money.

They were a group of five but Eloise Wellings and Failuna Matanga are now more than a minute back.

A quick update on some of the home nations currently in action in the team sports.

Scotland are huge underdogs at the NEC Arena as they take on netball giants Australia in the pool stage. A decent effort from the Scots so far as they trailed the three-time champions 17-10 after the first quarter, although that’s now 26-10. Australia hammered Barbados 95-18 yesterday, for context.

It’s better news on the hockey pitches though, where Wales’s men are thumping Canada 5-0 in the final quarter - Gareth Furlong netted his fourth goal to make it five.

We told you earlier about Victor Kiplangat turning the wrong way as he was closing in on victory in the men’s marathon. He ran about 200m down the road before he was caught and told to turn around!

Luckily he had enough of an advantage to still take gold - Uganda’s first in the men’s marathon at the Commonwealth Games.

The women’s race is starting to get towards the business end now, with a group of five women at the front, although Australia’s Eloise Wellings and Failuna Matanga from Tanzania are starting to drop off.

Another Australian, Jessica Stenson, Margaret Wangari Muriuki (Kenya) and Helalia Johannes (Namibia) are the lead trio.