You couldn’t script it.
One of the most dramatic finishes to a race in Commonwealth Games history has had another post-race twist to shatter English hearts and strip their 4x400m women’s relay team of a gold medal.
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England thought they had hung on for a heart-stopping gold medal victory by 0.01 seconds over Canada when Jessie Knight just barely held off the fast-finishing Kyra Constantine in the very last athletics race for the Games.
The host nation had a massive lead heading into the last leg, but Constantine surged her way up to Knight, who looked gone.
But Knight had more fight left in her yet, creating one of the all-time great finishes to a race in Games history.
She mustered up everything she had to sprint to the line alongside Constantine in a finish that was far too close to call.
After waiting with bated breath, the stadium erupted when replays showed Knight had held on by the barst of margins to claim gold.
Then came the twist.
After a protest, officials reviewed England’s changeover at the end of the first leg, when Jodie Williams received the baton from Victoria Ohuruogu.
During an awkward handover, Williams had inadvertently drifted over into the lane on her inside, lane two, as she was about to receive the baton and take off.
So disoriented were the two English runners that even Ohuruogu was standing in lane two as she watched her teammate run off.
The review found that the England team clearly infringed and, in such a close race, could have had a slightly unfair advantage that meant they hung on for gold, so they were stripped of their gold medal.
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The England team completed a victory lap before having the bad news broken to them.
Athletics commentator Rob Walker said it was a clear-cut decision.
“It’s as clear as day; you cannot step on the inside,” he said.
“Possibly, because the gold, in the end, was determined by such an incredibly slender margin – maybe if they’d won it by 50 meters there wouldn’t have been a protest. But that was clear and away, and England’s glory turns to heartache.
“It was an incredible, incredible end to the race, but it is Canada’s gold in the end – and by a little more than a hundredth of a second.”
Desperate to hang on to their gold, England protested the decision, but were denied.
Athletics commentator Tim Hutchings said they had no grounds on which to protest.
“Jodie took a couple of steps inside the lane which was Canada’s lane, ironically, lane two,” he said.
“And then, once she’d set off and righted herself in the correct lane, Victoria Ohuruogu was standing in the wrong lane – that’s how disoriented they were.
“She was standing in the lane inside England’s lane as she watched Jodie Williams head off on her second leg. That compounded the infringement.”
“It was, at the time, a glittering, glittering end – the perfect end – to a wonderful six-day, 12-session bonanza of athletics,” Walker added.
But it wasn’t to be, and Canada finishes with the medal, while Jamaica was elevated to silver, and Scotland took third.
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In the video below: A wrap of all the action from Day 10
Australia’s golden Day 10 at Comm Games.
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