More Medals on Final Day of Athletics

Athletes from the UK finished their Commonwealth Youth Games campaigns with a flourish on Thursday with a further four medals from the track and field.

On the track Shaunna Thompson completed a sprint double with ease as she won the women’s 200m in a Games record of 23.42. The Manchester based athlete was understandably delighted with her second gold of the Games:

“It felt good,” she said after the race. “I could have run faster but it’s the end of the season and I’ve won two gold medals so I don’t care. I’ve just got to keep working now to improve. I felt before the Games that I could win the 200m but never thought I’d get gold in the 100m so after I won the 100m I was confident I could do the double.

"If I’ve learnt one thing from these Games it’s that you’ve really got to focus because there are a lot of distractions and people cheering for other events that are going on at the same time. If you focus it will go alright but if you don’t focus enough it can all go wrong.”

Rachel Stringer took silver for England ahead of Lynsey Sharp who took bronze for Scotland in a competitive 800m final where a Games record of 2.04.23 by South African Mokgadi Caster Semenya took gold.

Stringer (City of Norwich) clocked 2.05.71 to eclipse Sharp (Edinburgh AC) who ran 2.06.77 in third.

Meanwhile, on the field, England’s Shaunagh Brown (Blackheath & Bromley) won bronze in the discus with 42.96m.