Who would have thought that the swirling winds of Melbourne’s Lakeside Stadium would provide the perfect preparation for Glasgow?
Tom Reynolds drew the comparison between the venues after a 45.63 seconds victory in his semi-final, with his long hair slicked back in the windy conditions down the back straight.
“I was waiting for everyone to come at me down the straight,” Reynolds told channel seven after the race, which he won by three-tenths-of-a-second.
“It was so tough. I was just trying to stay patient.
“But hey, I’m from Melbourne and I’ve run at Lakeside a million times – it’s the same thing.”
Tom Reynolds on Scotstoun Stadium’s wind
Lakeside was the compromise Victorian athletics received after being evicted from Olympic Park before its demolition in 2012: a converted soccer ground beside a lake and close to the coast that seldom provides ideal conditions for the sport. Scotstoun Stadium, by contrast, is in Glasgow—which is, well, simply a windy city. It caused havoc in heats of the 200m sprints, with many inexperienced athletes stepping out of their lanes and being disqualified.
But none of that for the 21-year-old Masters of Physiotherapy student, who won by almost three-tenths-of-a-second. The run was worth something maybe three-quarters-of-a-second faster if held in better conditions.
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Reynold’s main competiton in the final will come from the other semi-final winners: Nigeria’s Samuel Ogazi and Trinidad & Tobago’s Jereem Richards.
Ogazi has the fastest time in the world this year at 43.38 seconds, a mark that sees him fourth on the global all-time lists. His 44.52 victory in the semi, where he won by over a second, was a Commonwealth Games Record.
Richards, a 43.72 man at his best, has run 44.44 seconds this season. That’s not far ahead of Reynold’s best of 44.67 this earlier this year at the Oceania Championships in Darwin.
The rain started just before the start of Reece Holder’s semi-final, but it – was just a drizzle compared to the downpour that flooded the venue on the second night of competition.
South Africa’s Zakithi Nene in the lane outside Reece Holder got out well and helped tow him through into the straight close together. But the rest of the field closed much better with Richards winning in 45.06. Holder was fifth across the line, but upgraded to fourth following a disqualification, in a time of 45.99 seconds.
Michelle Jenneke progressed through to her fourth consecutive Commonwealth Games final in the 100m hurdles with a 12.72 (+4.3) third place in her semi-final. World record holder Tobi Amusan from Nigeria ran a sensational 12.19 seconds (+3.8) to be the fastest qualifier to the final.
Cameron McEntyre moved through to the final of the javelin, the sixth qualifier with a best throw of 78.91m in the windy conditions. Nobody threw the automatic qualifier, with the best mark being 82.84m from Sri Lanka’s Rumesh Pathirage, a frequent visitor and competitor on the Australian summer series circuit.
