Australia’s swimmers made a typically-dominant start to the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, claiming six gold medals on their first day.
And a run of victory after victory in finals at the Tollcross International Swimming Centre even included what the great Dennis Cometti would have called “rare gold — the best kind of gold”.
Jenna Forrester’s preparations for the women’s 200m backstroke were abridged. The final came less than an hour after she had claimed bronze in the women’s 400m freestyle as her compatriot Lani Pallister cruised to an expectant gold and only minutes after they had shared the podium.
After jogging back to the marshalling area, she defied whatever lactic acid was surely surging through her muscles to storm home and claim her very first international gold medal, winning with a time of 2min8.17sec.
The recently-retired and legendary Ariarne Titmus, who is serving as a pool deck commentator for Channel Seven’s coverage of the Games, called Forrester’s effort “one of the all-time back-ups I have ever seen”.
And it appeared the 23-year-old Queenslander was just as surprised as anyone.
“I did not expect that to happen,” Forrester said.
“I was really happy with my 400.
“I didn’t know what to expect. I gave it my all and I’m so proud of myself.
“I’m just so shocked, to be honest.”
WA’s Iona Anderson, one of the pre-race favourties, posted a time of 2:09.77 to finish sixth.
While Pallister had earlier bested the four-minute mark in the women’s 400m freestyle final in what Titmus called “an exceptional, world-class swim”, she was not overly impressed with her own 3:59.56 effort.
“I’m not super stoked with the time, you probably could’ve seen that on my face at the end,” Pallister said.
“It’s important to build and keep going and move on from it.”
Pallister is the daughter of Janelle, who won bronze in the event at the 1990 Games in Auckland.
“She’ll probably just tell me she’s happy for me and super proud of me,” Pallister said of her mother, who she revealed was on a flight in her capacity as a coach to Australia’s open-water swimmers during the event.
In the men’s 10m butterfly S10 final, the ‘Bunbury Bullet’ Alex Saffy added another chapter to his rivalry with great mate and Col Pearse, holding off a trademark fast finish from the Victorian to win in 57.11.
Saffy — who lives with cerebal palsy — said the feeling of victory was “pretty awesome”.
“The race plan was just to go out hard and see what I had left,” Saffy said.
“I can’t complain. The time’s not where I want to be, but it’s still gold.”
Saffy was one of two Australian para swimmers to claim gold on the first day, coming after Jenna Jones won the women’s 100m S13 freestyle in 1:03.89.
In what was hardly a surprise, Australia’s women’s and men’s 4x100m freestyle relay teams ensured there would be yet more success on a brilliant opening day by closing out proceedings with back-to-back dominant victories.
Superstars Mollie O’Callaghan and Kyle Chalmers barely needed to break a sweat in the anchor legs after much of the work was done early by their respective squads of Meg Harris, Shayna Jack and Alex Perkins and Flynn Southam, Kai Taylor and Harrison Turner.
The resurgent Jack swum the fastest split in the women’s event with a 52.64 while Southam blitzed his field, producing what would have been the fourth-fastest individual 100m time by an Australian, a blistering 47.09.
In total, all but two of Australia’s Games-leading 13 medals claimed on the first day — which also included a pair of silvers and five bronzes — were won in the pool.