Birmingham, England – Rasheed Broadbell turned in a scintillating performance to land gold in the 110m hurdles final at the 2022 Commonwealth Games. He set a Games Record of 13.08 seconds (0.9mps) in the absence of race favorite and teammate Hansle Parchment on Thursday night.
The man who turns 22 next week Saturday reported in immaculate form and was never in danger of losing his maiden major title as he led for every inch of the contest, winning comfortably in the end in a personal best ahead of Caribbean rival Shane Brathwaite of Barbados, who posted a seasons best 13.30 seconds.
English hopeful Andrew Pozzi was third in 13.37 seconds, while Jamaica’s other entrant, Orlando Bennett, finished fifth in 13.43 seconds.
Jamaica also secured a bronze medal in the late evening when Traves Smikle placed third in the men’s discus with a throw of 64.58m.
The Jamaicans are now in 11th place on the medals table with two gold, two silver and a bronze for five medals.
Australia lead with 132 medals (51 gold, 42 silver and 39 bronze), ahead of England with 118 (42 gold, 44 silver and 32).
But the big disappointment from the 110m hurdles final was the absence of the howling favorite, Jamaica’s Tokyo Olympic Games gold medalist Hansle Parchment, who withdrew as a precaution, being unfit to give his best.
Parchment, one of the favorites for gold at the World Championships in Oregon, USA, last month, was forced to withdraw from the final after getting hurt during warm-up for the event.
Broadbell made the best of his teammate’s absence and he was grateful.
“I feel really great… really humbled right now. I have been training really hard for this, practised different styles of running, so I’m here today and feeling really great” – Broadbell.”
Reflecting further on his journey to the top podium place, Broadbell added. “My coach said all I got to do is do what we practice in training these last few weeks, and that’s the rhythm. I already have the leg speed, so that’s what I did and trust the process.”
He also disclosed that he got words of encouragement from Parchment earlier in the day when he was informed that the race favorite would withdraw.
“Before I came here he was on the phone and he told me ‘just stay focused, you have it’, and that’s exactly what I did.”
He was unaware that he had gone that fast, but took comfort in the fact that “sometimes when you run you don’t know what’s going to happen, you just got to execute properly”.
In the discus throw final, Smikle started slowly but recovered sufficiently to gain the bronze, while his compatriot Roje Stona finished sixth with a best throw of 62.15m.
And in the men’s long jump final Shawn-D Thompson lost out on a bronze medal by a centimeter to South Africa’s Jovan van Vuuren, with 8.06m to 8:05m.
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Thompson had registered his 8.05m on his third attempt, after fouling his second, but van Vuuren had already posted his best on his second try.
But India’s Shreeshankar Shreeshankar upset the applecart when he slipped into the silver medal position with 8.08m on his fifth and penultimate try.
The winner, The Bahamas’ Laquan Nairn also posted a best of 8.08m but won on countback with a superior second-best jump of 7.99m to the Indian’s 7.84m.
Natalliah Whyte (23.61) and Elaine Thompson-Herah (22.80) advanced from round one of the 200m heats, while Kimberly Williamson and Lamara Distin progressed to the high jump final.
Kadrian Goldson (21.19 seconds) is safely through to the semi-finals of the men’s 200m, while Shiann Salmon (55.30), Janieve Russell (55.79) and Rushell Clayton (54.93) will contest the final.
