HUNTER AND PERRY SHINE IN SEMI-FINALS  

Daniel Hunter and Sam Perry shone in tonight’s evening session, posting personals bests to make the finals of the men’s 50m butterfly at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.

Hunter, 23, recorded a personal best of 23.93s to break the 24 second barrier for the first time, Qualifying 5th fastest for Thursday’s final.

“My goal here was to swim a personal best time, I came close this morning by 0.01, I’m really happy with tonight’s result, and to have Sam in the final too”, says Hunter.

Perry, 22, broke his personal best for the second time today, finishing 3^rd in his semi-final with a time of 23.99s. Perry has qualified 6^th for tomorrows final, just behind Hunter.


The field has been blown wide open after defending champion and games record holder Ben Proud was disqualified in his morning heat.

“It’s unfortunate for that to happen to Ben, he’s a great guy and I wouldn’t wish that on anybody, but now there’s an outside chance of a medal, we’ll see how it goes tomorrow”, says Hunter.

The fastest qualifier for the final was South African Chad le Clos, with 23.53s.

Corey Main did just enough in his semi-final of the 100m backstroke to qualify 7^th for the final.

Main, 23, finished 3rd in the first semi with a time of 55.02s, finishing behind Marcus Thormeyer of Canada (53.86s) and Luke Greenbank of England (54.54s).

Australian favourite Mitch Larkin leads all finals qualifiers with 53.15s.

Earlier in the day Main posted a faster 54.99s, coming from behind to win his heat comfortably.

The women’s 4x100m freestyle relay final, saw the Australian women’s team brake the world record with a time of 3:30.05.

The Kiwi team finished 4^th in the final which had five teams competing, recording a time of 3:43.77s.

Laticia Transom, 16, posted a personal best of 55.75s as the lead off swimmer in her first race of the games.

In other semi-final action, Helena Gasson and Georgia Marris contested the women’s 100m butterfly, minutes before their relay final.

Gasson’s 59.70s placed her 12^th overall, while Marris stopped the clock at 1:00.58 to finish 16^th overall.

Australian Madeline Groves was in record breaking form, posting a new games record of 57.22s to emerge clearly as the one to beat in tomorrow’s final.

After posting a PB in the morning heats, Bronagh Ryan swam 32.70 to finish 16th overall in the women’s 50m breaststroke.