Michael Shelley started the day off in style claiming Australia’s first Commonwealth Games men’s marathon win since Steve Moneghetti in 1994, beating the more fancied Kenyan runners.
Shelley went one better than his silver in Delhi to finish in two hours, 11 minutes and 15 seconds.
It was in the pool where the Aussies most did damage to England’s faint hopes of medal tally glory, with a number of clean sweeps of major medals. World champion James Magnussen’s only competition in the 100m freestyle final came from his teammates Cameron McEvoy and Tommaso D’Orsogna, who took gold, silver and bronze.
In the race before that, Belinda Hocking and Emily Seebohm took gold and silver in the 200m backstroke while Ben Treffers and Mitch Larkin were first and second for Oz in the 50m backstroke.
To cap the night off Cameron McEvoy, David McKeon, Ned McKendry and Thomas Fraser-Holmes followed the previous night’s 4x100m gold with 4x200m freestyle relay victory almost two seconds ahead of Scotland.
On the cycling track Stephanie Morton upset the queen of the track Anna Meares 2-0 in the best of three sprint final.
Meares’ 23-year-old protege then insisted the veteran stand on the winners’ dais with her as Advance Australia Fair played.
Australia now have 21 silver and 26 bronze to go with the 26 gold, while England have 23 gold and 17 each of silver and bronze. Scotland is in third with 11 gold, eight silver and 11 bronze ahead of Canada’s seven gold, nine silver and seven bronze going into day five.
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