SUPPORT OUR PARA ATHLETES IN GLASGOW
Buy Your Green and Gold Seat
Australia’s top Para swimmers flexed their muscles on Day 3 of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow with no fewer than 10 Aussies winning a medal, after crowd favourite Hani Watson claimed bronze in Para powerlifting.
Watson – who along with fellow Commonwealth Games representative Ben Wright competed for Australia at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games – became the first Australian to win two Commonwealth Games medals in the power sport, capturing bronze in the women’s heavyweight with a final lift of 147 kilograms to score 111.5 points.
Watson was bettered only by the dominant Nigerian duo of Folashade Oluwafemiayo, whose score of 134.8 represented a new world record, and Rita Ferdinand’s 128.2.
“It’s been an incredibly hard journey for the last 12 months,” Watson told Channel Seven afterwards.
“Six surgeries down the track and still trying to hit these goals and PBs and motivating people around Australia.
Six surgeries down the track and still trying to hit these goals and PBs and motivating people around Australia.
“I’m so incredibly impassioned about everyone just getting out there and giving every dream a go. I’m proud of the team for coming here and to wear the green and gold. I’ve set out to do this and we’ve done exactly what we wanted to do.”
I’m so incredibly impassioned about everyone just getting out there and giving every dream a go.
Australia’s swimming medallists were headed by two-time Paralympian Jenna Jones, who won gold in the 100 metres freestyle S13, six-time Paralympic Games medallist Tim Hodge who took gold in the 100 metres backstroke S9, and Alex Saffy who won bronze at Paris 2024 and took gold in the 100 metres butterfly S10 in which he won the silver medal at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games four years ago.
Hodge said: “I’ve always strived to do my best, to put my best effort into the pool and into everything I do. I guess some of the honours I’ve been fortunate enough to experience, like baton bearer this year, I like to think that while I’m setting a precedent for Para sport, I’m always showing people back home that if you put your mind to something, you can achieve it, no matter what it is.”
If you put your mind to something, you can achieve it, no matter what it is.
Other medallists in the pool included Paralympic representatives Jasmine Greenwood (silver in the 200 metres individual medley SM10), Col Pearse (silver in the 100 metres butterfly S10), Jack Ireland (silver in the 200 metres freestyle S14) and Kirralee Hayes (bronze in the 100 metres freestyle S13).
Gemma Sellick, Victoria Belando-Nicholson and Harrison Vig also won medals in their respective events.
Among other results, Australia bounced back from their narrow loss to England on Day 1 with a 21-5 win over Kenya in their men’s 3×3 wheelchair basketball clash.
The women’s 3×3 wheelchair basketball team scored a 20-5 win over South Africa after they, too, went down to England in the opener. Both the men’s and women’s Australian teams take on Canada on Day 4.
Buy Your Green and Gold Seat
"*" indicates required fields
