This week on the real footy podcast, Sam McClure, Greg Baum and Jake Niall discuss Collingwood, momentum and belief. The Pies are confounding statistics and expectations and have now won 11 in a row.
The stats show the Pies should not be winning this many games; they get beaten at clearances, particularly center clearances, and against the Demons they were beaten, comfortably, in contested possessions and inside-50s. They are undeniably dominating in one particular stat though: wins.
So far, Collingwood have been playing with house money, and without the weight of expectations. But now people are talking about their premiership prospects, will the Pies start to tighten up?
Also this week, the Tigers have some decisions to make going forward. With Shai Bolton emerging as a star, do they need to keep Dustin Martin to be a viable premiership threat in the next five years? Or can they rebuild on the run by bringing in some other players during trade period and trading Martin for some high draft picks and maybe even a player? The deal Martin on has been absolutely worth it, given the success they’ve enjoyed. But is it time for the Tigers to think about the future?
In the immediate term, Richmond are back in the eight and should win their last two games, though even one win would leave them a pretty good chance to get in. But are there twists left in the race for a finals spot, with St Kilda and the Bulldogs still in touch, and Carlton with two very tough games to come?
In off-field news, there has been plenty of discussion recently about Lance Franklin’s playing future. There are three options for “Buddy” – he and the Swans compromise, and he stays; I have withdrawn; or he joins a new club. We discuss where he might end up.
Plus, the watching brief on Ken Hinkley and Port Adelaide, the decision in the Judd-Kennedy trade that could have made the ultimate deal for Carlton, the team that can stop Geelong this year and much more.
A luxury car stolen from a home in Woodvale — which is linked to the investigation into whether two teenagers were being followed in a vigilante chase before they came off a stolen motorcycle in Hillarys — has crashed in Balga after it failed to stop for police.
The white BMW hatchback crashed into a civilian van after a short police pursuit about 4pm on Wednesday on the corner of Princess Road and Princess Way.
Three people in the BMW have been taken into custody and nobody was injured.
The white BMW hatchback crashed into a civilian van after a short police pursuit about 4pm on Wednesday. Credit: simon santi/The West Australian
A Princess Road resident, who did not want to be named, said it was lucky her five-year-old son and eight-year-old daughter were not playing outside at the time.
The crash happened within meters of the family’s backyard where there is a children’s swing set.
The crash happened within meters of the family’s backyard where there is a children’s swing set. Credit: simon santi/The West Australian
“I got home from work and made (the kids) go in the house straight away, the biggest frustration is just how close it was to going through my fence,” she said.
“It would be a whole different ball game had it gone further in, we might not be standing here today.”
Another resident said he was watching TV about 3pm when he heard what sounds like “bombs had gone off”.
A man is arrested by detectives. Credit: simon santi/The West Australian
Police allege the BMW was stolen during a home burglary in Woodvale in the early hours of Monday.
A Woodvale couple and their two children were asleep inside their home when the BMW was allegedly stolen.
A California dermatologist has been arrested after her husband secretly recorded her allegedly poisoning him by pouring Drano into his drinks, according to officials and a filing for a restraining order.
Dr. Yue Yu, 45, was arrested Thursday and booked into the Orange County Jail, the Irvine Police Department said in a news release. She was released Friday after posting $30,000 bond.
Her husband of 10 years, who was not identified by police, contacted Irvine authorities Thursday, saying he suspected Yu was poisoning him. An attorney for the husband identified him as Dr. Jack Chen, 53, a radiologist.
In a bid to catch his wife in the act, the husband “placed cameras in the home that surreptitiously recorded evidence in the case,” and shared the footage with police, Lt. Bill Bingham told NBC News.
Police arrived at the couple’s home with a search warrant the same day, interviewed Yu and subsequently arrested her.
Yu, who has not been formally charged in the case, “vehemently and unequivocally denies ever attempting to poison her husband or anyone else,” her attorney, David E. Wohl, said.
According to police, the husband fell ill “over the course of one month” and sustained “significant internal injuries.”
Chen’s attorney said his client filed for a restraining order against Yu on Friday. I have filed for divorce the same day, court records show.
Chen said in the filing for a restraining order that he caught Yu on video on three occasions putting the drain cleaner into his hot lemonade drink.
An alleged screen grab of Dr. Yue Yu.via Hittelman Family Law GroupAn alleged screen grab of Dr. Yue Yu and her husband, Dr. Jack Chen.via Hittelman Family Law GroupAn alleged screen grab of Dr. Yue Yu.via Hittelman Family Law Group
The alleged poisonings happened July 11, 18 and 25, according to the filing.
In the July 18 incident, Chenly allegedly covered his cup with plastic wrap. When he was gone, Yu took the drain cleaner from under the kitchen sink, removed the cellophane covering, poured the liquid into the lemonade, then replaced the cellophane, the filing said.
Chen said he started noticing a “chemical taste” in his lemonade in March and April. He went to a doctor who diagnosed him with two stomach ulcers, gastritis and inflammation of the esophagus. The health issues prompted him to set up the cameras.
The couple married in 2012 and have two children, ages 7 and 8.
Yu is a dermatologist affiliated with Providence Mission Hospital.
A spokesperson for the hospital said Yu is a dermatologist with Mission Heritage Medical Group, which serves communities in South Orange County, and her office is not located in the hospital.
“This is an active police investigation and Mission Heritage Medical Group is cooperating fully with the Irvine Police Department,” the spokesperson said. “The incident is a domestic matter which occurred in Irvine, and we want to reassure our community that there has been no impact on our patients.”
Wohl, Yu’s attorney, said his client, who goes by her first name Emily, is “a well-respected physician.”
“Her goal has always been to help people and never to harm people. Accordingly, she also strongly denies her husband’s claims of abusing him and their children emotionally and physically, “he added.
“We are very concerned that these false allegations have been made by her husband in an attempt to gain an advantage in his recently filed divorce and custody case against her,” Wohl said.
A spokesperson for the Orange County District Attorney’s Office said they are still reviewing evidence and have not made a filing decision yet. Yu isn’t due in court until Nov. 3, 2022.
Marlene Lenthang is a breaking news reporter for NBC News Digital.
Prices for bonds soared immediately after the inflation report’s release, pulling their yields lower. The yield on the two-year Treasury, which tends to track expectations for the Fed, fell to 3.19 per cent from 3.27 per cent late Tuesday.
The 10-year yield initially fell, though stabilized later in trading. It edged higher to 2.79 per cent from 2.78 per cent late on Tuesday. It remains below the two-year yield and many investors see such a gap as a fairly reliable signal of a coming recession.
Recession worries have built as the highest inflation in 40 years squeezes households and corporations around the world. Wall Street is closely watching to see if the Fed can succeed in hitting the brakes on the economy and cooling inflation without veering into a recession.
“It’s a very knife-edge type of path that they are trying to tread here,” said Brian Nick, chief investment strategist at Nuveen.
To be sure, inflation is still painfully high, and the expectation is for it to stay so for a while. But Wednesday’s data nevertheless rejuvenated Wall Street, which staggered following a stronger-than-expected jobs report on Friday that raised expectations for a more aggressive Fed. It bolstered hopes that a peak in inflation — and thus in the Federal Reserve’s most aggressive rate hikes — may be on the horizon.
“This is a step in the right direction but keep in mind we have many thousands ahead of us before inflation normalises,” said Mike Loewengart, managing director, investments strategy, at E-Trade from Morgan Stanley.
The Federal Reserve will get a few more highly anticipated reports before its next announcement on interest rates September 21, which could also alter its stance. Those include reports showing hiring trends across the economy due September 2 and the next update on consumer inflation coming on September 13.
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More immediately, reports this week will show how inflation is doing at the wholesale level and whether US households are still ratcheting down their expectations for coming inflation, an influential data point for Fed officials.
Wednesday’s inflation data nevertheless helped stocks across Europe climb to modest gains, while markets that closed earlier in Asia were mostly down. Germany’s DAX returned 1.2 per cent, Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.6 per cent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 2 per cent.
On Wall Street, companies in the housing industry were strong on hopes that a less aggressive Fed could mean less pressure on mortgage rates. Homebuilder DR Horton gained 4.7 per cent, PulteGroup rose 4.6 per cent and Lennar was 3.6 per cent higher.
Cruise lines and other travel-related companies also made big gains. Carnival rose 9.2 per cent and American Airlines rose 3.1 per cent.
Netflix, a formerly high-flying and high-growth stock that has plunged to be this year’s worst in the S&P 500, was up 6.2 per cent though it remains down by nearly 60 per cent for 2022.
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Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix has pledged to come back even stronger next season, after winning three Commonwealth Games medals — including double gold — at Birmingham 2022.
The 17-year-old, who made the British team at the last Olympics but largely went under the radar, rounded off the final day of competition yesterday with gold in the 10metre mixed synchronized platform diving competition alongside Noah Williams.
It added to a gold in the individual event as well as silver in the women’s synchro event to mark her out as a potential star for the next Olympics in Paris.
Spendolini-Sirieix will compete at the upcoming European Championships before drawing a close to an impressive season.
Following her Birmingham heroics, she said: “Now we have got the Europeans, so I will focus on that. After that, I will take a break, have a summer holiday and come back even stronger.”
The Team England athlete was again cheered on from the stands by her father, Fred Sirieix, the star of television series First Dates.
Her medal haul will only ramp up expectation, but she said: “I’m not going to put pressure on myself.
“Whether there is external pressure or not, the internal pressure is the one which makes you crumble. But I’m very excited for the next two years.
Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix won three medals at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham
/ Getty Images
“I’m learning about dealing with the pressure in competition. If I can keep the internal pressure under control, that’s good. I’m still learning and I’m going to make mistakes.
“This has given me a lot of confidence but success in competition comes from training hard and working hard.”
Teacher salaries could rise to up to $130,000 a year as Australia battles an increasing shortage in the sector.
The new plan follows a number of strikes in recent months as teachers walked off the job to demand better pay and working conditions.
One recent report suggested that huge numbers of teachers were planning to leave the education sector in the next five years due to the difficult environment.
Should we increase salaries for top teachers to $130,000?
Australia is considering radical steps to stop teachers leaving education. (Getty)
Education Ministers from around Australia will meet tomorrow to discuss plans to shore up the sector, including retaining current teachers and attracting new talent.
Among the ideas being flagged are salaries of $130,000 a year, and lowering university fees to make it more affordable to join the profession.
An apprenticeship-style system of on-the-job training is also being mooted.
Teachers have gone on strike in recent months to demand better pay and conditions. (Brook Mitchell)
NSW Teachers Federation head Angelo Gavrielatos said recently that an entire generation of students were missing out on a proper education because of the teaching sector woes.
Every day, he said, thousands of students were reporting that they had their classes merged, forgotten, or cancelled, as schools scrambled to plug teaching gaps.
Gavrielatos said while the pandemic had exacerbated the issue, the teacher crisis predated COVID-19 by years.
Surprise find upends human history in North America
He said that teachers had not had their working conditions changed for, in some cases, seventy years.
“The government has got thousands of pages of research and analysis that says the two most important factors here are unsustainable workloads and uncompetitive pay,” Gavrielatos said.
“Yet the government appears to be wanting to do everything else other than dealing with the root cause of the issue.”
On New Year’s Day 2008, Said took his two daughters for a ride in his taxi. Hours later, the girls’ lifeless bodies were found, with multiple gunshots wounds, in Said’s abandoned cab. Before she died, Sarah made a brief, desperate call for help. By the time the police located the cab, the sisters were dead, and Said had disappeared, along with his handgun and all of his savings, CNN previously reported.
Said remained a fugitive for more than 12 years, with six of those years being on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitive List, before being captured without incident on August 26, 2020, in Justin, Texas, according to the release.
After six days of trial, a Dallas County jury deliberated for three hours before returning a verdict of guilty Tuesday, the release said.
“There is nothing honorable about what Yaser Said did on January 1, 2008. Dallas County has shown Mr. Said that there is no excuse for taking another human life. He must now spend the rest of his days confined to a prison cell living under the control of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice,” District Attorney Creuzot said. “While this verdict does not bring Sarah and Amina back, my office and this jury have done all that is in our power to see that justice is done.”
Said’s public defender, Bradley Lollar, told CNN, “We are disappointed in the verdict, but accept it. We are planning on appealing.”
Lollar added, “This was a case where there were no witnesses, no physical evidence of any kind, no surveillance videos, or confession. To the contrary, our client always maintained innocence of the crime.”
CNN’s Jennifer Henderson, Ed Lavandera, and Ashley Killough contributed to this report.
John Irwin is the general manager of Steritech and on the frontline of Australia’s ongoing gas crisis.
Key points:
State and federal energy ministers meet on Friday for the first time since the ACCC’s scathing report on the east coast gas market
Industry has called for the government to “stand on the throat of gas producers” to ensure supply and fair prices
The Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association says there is no gas cartel controlling prices on the east coast
“Without natural gas, we don’t operate our operations,” he said.
Steritech was one of the hundreds of manufacturers left exposed to the spot market when energy retailer Weston Energy collapsed in July.
Only two other gas providers were willing to consider signing a new supply deal with Steritech.
“And both of them were very unwilling to negotiate what we would consider a fair and long term price,” Mr Irwin said.
“It’s take it or leave it, you really don’t have a choice.”
Steritech is now paying up to four times what it used to for gas.
Mr Irwin said the dramatic price hike will eventually be passed through to patients on surgery operating tables around the country.
His company sterilises medical devices in procedure packs that are used in approximately 90 per cent of major operations in Australia.
“So increasing the price of those means that your health insurance is going to go up, and governments’ are going to have to spend more money in the public system for the materials being used,” Mr Irwin said.
Plenty of gas
Australia has plenty of gas and for decades the nation enjoyed cheap prices of around $5-a-gigajoule.
Technology enabled gas to be liquefied and sent overseas and Australia’s price became linked to the global market where prices are higher.
Recently prices on the east coast have skyrocketed as producers ramp up exports to supply a desperate global market caught short because of the war in Ukraine.
Mr Irwin does not hold back when it comes to who is responsible for the gas crisis.
“Both sides of politics have been in a situation where I don’t think they’ve represented the country too well,” he said.
“You’ve got to go back and look at who came up with a deal that does not ensure that we had appropriate domestic gas.
“The Australian community owns the gas in the ground, we license it out to gas companies to be able to extract it and deliver it to us, and you would expect that’s going to be done at a fair price.”
Malcolm Turnbull was prime minister in 2017 when he sat down with the heads of Santos, Shell and Origin and got them to agree to supply enough gas to the domestic market to fill projected shortfalls.
But he did not impose export or price controls, much like the current federal government in this current gas crisis.
Australia exports more LNG than it uses. (Supplied)
Australians have been left paying more for our gas than overseas customers for long periods.
Last week the ACCC delivered a scathing report on the east coast gas market which detailed concerns about price-fixing behavior by exporters.
It also found profits had exploded compared to the cost of extracting gas.
It made similar findings in 2015, concluding that gas suppliers on the east coast had used a market restructure to hike prices on domestic consumers and evidence of collusion.
In its most recent report, the consumer watchdog concluded the east coast market is highly concentrated and dominated by the three LNG exporters, APLNG, GLNG and QCLNG, and their associates – controlling 90 per cent of the proven and probable gas reserves.
The damning ACCC report found exporters were withdrawing more from the domestic market than they were supplying, risking a 56 petajoule shortfall in 2023.
“On top of that it showed that they [exporters] pretty much ignored the heads of agreement that they had agreed with the Australian government [in 2017],” Mark Ogge, principal adviser on climate and energy at the Australian Institute, said.
“They weren’t providing gas at reasonable prices and reasonable terms and conditions to Australian gas customers – they were sending it overseas instead.
“The ACCC report doesn’t use the word cartel, but it describes cartel behaviour.
“If there’s cartel behaviour, if they have been colluding to keep prices high, then they’ve broken the law and that should be investigated.”
Mark Ogge is a gas and energy analyst at the Australia Institute.(ABC News: Peter Drought )
The Australian Energy Market Regulator has said it plans to investigate potentially illegal behavior by the gas companies.
The ACCC said it will review the arrangements of exporters and “where appropriate consider enforcement action”.
Bruce Robertson, an energy analyst with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) said Australia was in “a rolling energy crisis caused by the gas cartel”.
“They control and fix the price through their contracting mechanisms. All these are detailed in the ACCC report, and if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, waddles like a duck, it is a duck.
“What the gas cartel is doing is starving the Australian market of gas to force up the price. That’s what cartels do. They fix prices.
“This is a price fixing cartel. It’s illegal and it should be dealt with with the full force of the Australian law.”
Energy analyst Bruce Robertson says gas companies on the east coast act like a “price fixing cartel”.(ABC News: Wiriya Sati )
Since the ACCC report was released on August 1, the gas price has been noticeably lower dropping to as low as $10.50-a-gigajoule.
“The gas price was as high as $55-a-gigajoule just two weeks ago in Sydney. So what we’ve seen is a collapse in the gas price. That could not have occurred without the gas cartel fixing the price,” Mr Robertson said.
“They’ve simply flooded the market in the short term, responding to political pressure that has come on with the ridiculous prices that they were charging Australian consumers.”
The peak body for gas producers the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association (APPEA), said prices had dropped because of planned maintenance on LNG export facilities.
“That’s meant more gas has been able to flow into the market because those facilities are down for scheduled maintenance,” Damian Dwyer, APPEA acting chief executive said.
“And that’s a regular thing that happens this time of year and we’ve also seen warmer weather conditions that have meant less draw on gas for heating and power generation purposes than we saw in May.”
Mr Dwyer said there had been no collusion between gas companies.
“There’s been no behavior of that kind going on, what we’ve got is a market that has been under significant pressure,” he said.
“And that’s the energy market more broadly, not the gas market, the invasion of Ukraine and the international geopolitical tensions and disruptions to the energy market that have arisen from that.”
Electricity prices are going up
Gas is known as a price-setter in the National Electricity Market because gas-fired power plants step in to “smooth” the demand for energy when aging coal power stations are down or renewables aren’t working.
“A fair proportion of the electricity we use is generated by gas power stations at the moment,” Mr Ogge said.
“And with the price of gas going up to $40-a-gigajoule it meant that some gas power stations couldn’t produce gas for under $500-a-megawatt-hour.
“Previously the wholesale price of electricity was around $80 MWh, and these enormously high prices will flow onto Australian households and businesses.”
Damian Dwyer, APPEA acting chief executive, says there is no east coast gas cartel.(ABC News: David Sciasci)
What’s the solution?
Unlike in Western Australia, which requires companies to reserve 15 per cent of gas for domestic use, there are no export limits or price caps on east coast gas.
Innes Willox from AiGroup said the longer the gas crisis drags on the more justification there was for an east coast reservation policy.
“It really is going to need government intervention, both at a federal and state level,” he said.
“And it’s going to need governments, quite frankly, to put their foot on the throat of gas producers to make sure they uphold their end of the bargain.
Mr Willox spent much of last year acting on behalf of industry trying to set up a code of conduct between gas producers and consumers – in the end, it fell over.
“Gas producers refused to touch issues around price, they wouldn’t go near it with a barge pole,” he said.
“They wouldn’t have price, content transparency as any part of a code of conduct, which rendered any sort of idea of a code of conduct completely useless, quite frankly.”
Innes Willox, AiGroup chief executive, says without energy at fair prices there will be no industry.
AiGroup does not support a “full blown reservation policy” but one that would only apply to new gas fields and take into consideration a “national interest test” on whether Australia had enough domestic supply.
Mr Robertson disagrees and argues that there should be no hesitation to apply a retrospective gas reservation policy with price controls, because gas companies have broken their original approval conditions by affecting the domestic market with exports.
“These players are now buying gas out of the domestic market, this is in direct contravention of their approval conditions,” Mr Robertson said.
“But law breaking just seems to go on and on in the gas industry in Australia and the government seems impotent.”
Windfall profits tax
Mr Ogge argues for a windfall profits tax, as the UK government has recently adopted in the face of soaring energy prices.
“A windfall profits tax is the only thing that we know will be effective,” he said.
“That’s because it would be very effective in reducing gas prices, because it removes the incentive for the LNG producers to export all their excess gas overseas to cash in on high gas prices.
“And it removes the incentive for them to charge Australian customers exorbitant prices for the gas that we use.
“On top of that, it provides funds for us to compensate Australian customers and businesses and households, and, money to actually help us electrify and get off gas so that we’re not permanently over the barrel of high international prices.”
tax time
According to analysis from the Australia Institute, five of the nation’s biggest gas producers haven’t paid income tax in at least seven years – despite combined earnings of $138 billion.
“It’s extraordinary when you think about it, that almost half the gas produced in Australia isn’t subject to any royalties at all – so they’re getting the gas for free,” Mr Ogge said.
“We’re getting a woefully inadequate return for Australians, and we’re paying huge additional energy costs.
“It’s high time the Australian government got onto this issue and fixed it.”
Mr Dwyer said the industry is paying its fair share of tax.
“The industry pays taxes or royalties to every jurisdiction. And the way in which that plays out just depends on the jurisdiction in question.”
The industry rejects the need for a reservation policy or price controls, arguing there is not a supply problem — at the same it wants to extract gas from new fields.
“We need is ongoing investment to bring more gas supply into the market, so we’re keen to talk with the government about their way forward,” Mr Dwyer said.
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The cost of living is set to soar as the gas crisis bites.
VALORANT’S French sentinel Chamber has been gutted with several nerfs in Patch 5.03, Riot Games announced today.
Since his introduction, Chamber has become one of the most popular agents in VALORANT, with professional players using his kit to dominate the competition. Many players have complained about his ability to teleport instantly and his impressive firepower from him.
Chamber’s ability to teleport using his Rendezvous (E) has allowed the agent to play from different angles and take fights most characters can’t afford to take. Riot has nerfed several aspects of his Rendezvous from him, with the range and cooldown set to be hit with nerfs.
Here are the specific nerfs coming to Chamber in Patch 5.03:
Rendezvous (E)
Base cooldown increased from 20 to 30 seconds
Recall cooldown increased from 20 to 30 seconds
Cooldown set to 45 seconds whenever a Rendezvous anchor is destroyed
The diameter size of the “ring” Chamber can stand that allows him to activate Rendezvous decreased 21 from 15 units.
Chamber’s Trademark allows him to lock down an area and is the hallmark of his sentinel title. This ability was previously nerfed in VALORANT Patch 4.09, with two traps going down to just one. The ability will be nerfed once more with a decrease to the slow after enemies have triggered the Trademark.
Trademark (C)
Slow duration decreased from 9.5 to six seconds
His ultimate ability, Tour De Force (X), brings out the big guns for Chamber. He has a pocket operator with a built-in slow after he gets a kill. The ability is being nerfed with the number of ultimate points required being increased and the slow duration being decreased.
Tour De Force (X)
Ultimate points required increased from seven to eight
Slow duration decreased from 9.5 seconds to six seconds
Leg shot multiplier reduced from 1.0 to 0.85
Many professional players have coined the Headhunter (Q) as the “pocket guardian”—and for good reason. This cheap ability allows Chamber to pull out a pistol that takes down enemies with a few body shots and one shot to the head.
Headhunter (Q)
Single bullet cost increased from 100 to 150
VALORANT Patch 5.03 is set to be released today, Tuesday, Aug. 9.
BIRMINGHAM: Australia demolished India 7-0 in the men’s hockey final on Monday to maintain their perfect record at the Commonwealth Games and end their gold medal hunt in style.
The six-time defending champions showed their opponents no mercy in sweltering conditions on the final day of sporting action in Birmingham.
Australia have won every gold medal in men’s hockey since the sport joined the Commonwealth Games program in 1998.
The dominant Australians were 2-0 up after the first quarter and two goals from Jacob Anderson helped put them 5-0 up after 30 minutes.
GOLD medalists England’s James Willstrop and James Declan (C) stand on the podium alongside silver medalists England’s Adrian Waller and Daryl Selby (L) and bronze winners Greg Lobban and Rory Stewart of Scotland during the medal presentation ceremony for the men’s doubles squash event of the Commonwealth Games at the University of Birmingham Hockey and Squash Center on Monday.—AFP
Nathan Ephraums scored his second to make it 6-0 and Flynn Ogilvie completed the route early in the final quarter.
Australia’s Blake Govers said the team had saved their best performance until last.
That’s what we pride ourselves on,” he said.“It’s awesome to do it without too much of a heart problem. We had to play with confidence and play forward and take the game on from the start, and that’s what we did. That’s the difference between the two games [final and semi-final against England].” Host nation England beat South Africa 6-3 to take bronze.
AUSTRALIAN opener Beth Mooney plays a shot as Indian wicket-keeper Yastika Bhatia looks on during the women’s Twenty20 cricket gold medal match of the Commonwealth Games at Edgbaston.—AFP
Australia have topped the medals table with 67 golds — 10 ahead of England. Canada are third with 26 golds and India have 22.
The closing ceremony takes place at Alexander Stadium later on Monday, bringing to an end 11 days of sporting action at the 22nd Commonwealth Games.
Elsewhere on Monday, Scotland’s James Heatly and Grace Reid won the mixed synchronized 3m springboard final, with England pair Noah Williams and Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix taking gold in the 10m event.
PV Sindhu of India competes against Canada’s Michelle Li during their women’s singles badminton final of the Commonwealth Games at the NEC arena on Monday.—Reuters
India celebrated a golden double in badminton.
World number seven PV Sindhu won the women’s singles, overcoming Canada’s Michelle Li while Lakshya Sen beat Malaysia’s Ng Tze Yong to win the men’s gold.
India’s Sharath Kamal Achanta beat England’s Liam Pitchford 4-1 in the men’s singles table tennis gold-medal match.
The best two weeks of my 40 years of life,” said the winner, who won three golds and a silver in Birmingham. “It can’t get better.”
Birmingham 2022 CEO Ian Reid said the Games had been a huge boost for the city and the surrounding area.
He said more than 1.5 million tickets had been sold, with most venues above 90 percent capacity.
ENGLAND’S Delicious Orie (R) in action against Sagar Ahlawat of India during their super heavyweight boxing gold medal bout at the NEC Hall 4.—Reuters
One of the goals at the outset was to put the city on the world map and instill that huge pride across everyone that lives in the region and I think we’ve achieved that,” he told a briefing on Monday. I think that can lead to much bigger and greater things.”
On Sunday, Australia won the first women’s cricket gold medal in Commonwealth Games history as Scotland’s Laura Muir captured the 1500m title on the final night of athletics.
Elsewhere, England’s women won hockey gold and Australia beat Jamaica in the netball final.
Hot favorites Australia held their nerve to beat India by nine runs in a Twenty20 thriller in front of a big Edgbaston crowd and partied on the pitch as the lights went out around the stadium.
It’s absolutely huge,” said left-arm spinner Jess Jonassen. We are blessed enough to be part of some winning World Cup teams but to win the first gold medal for women’s cricket in the Commonwealth Games, you’re only ever going to do that once.”
Victory underlined the dominance of Australia’s women, who are also world champions in the 20-over and 50-over formats.
Muir ended her Commonwealth Games campaign with a flourish by winning gold in the 1500m at the Alexander Stadium.
SCOTLAND’S Laura Muir celebrates winning gold medal in the women’s 1,500m athletics final at the Alexander Stadium.—AFP
The 29-year-old’s team-mate, 10,000m champion Eilish McColgan, just failed in her bid for memorable double, finishing second behind Kenya’s impressive world silver medalist Beatrice Chebet in the women’s 5,000m.
Muir, who won bronze in the 800m on Saturday, kicked for glory before the bell and ran a fairly moderate field — lacking two-time Olympic champion Faith Kipyegon — ragged, timing 4min 02.75sec.
Wyclife Kinyamal defended his men’s 800m crown in a time of 1:47.52. It was an impressive turnaround for the 25-year-old, who finished last in the final of the world championships in July.
New Zealand cyclist Aaron Gate won the men’s road race to collect his fourth gold medal of the Commonwealth Games. In the women’s race, Australia’s Georgia Baker won her third gold of the games.
England won hockey gold for the first time after holding off a fightback from Australia to win 2-1.
Second-quarter goals from Holly Hunt and Tess Howard ultimately provided decisive 24 hours after the men’s team had suffered semi-final despair at the hands of Australia.
There was more joy for Australia in the netball competition, with a 55-51 over Jamaica in the final.
Australia also shone at the Sandwell Aquatics Centre. Cassiel Rousseau took the men’s 10m platform title and Maddison Keeney won her second gold of the games in the women’s 3m springboard.
England’s Delicious Orie won super heavyweight gold on a busy night of boxing, beating India’s Sagar Ahlawat.
India won three other golds in boxing but Northern Ireland took five, including a special double for Aidan Walsh and his sister Michaela.
