Commonwealth Games: NI bowlers lose medal match as Walsh reaches last eight

Northern Ireland’s men’s pair bowlers Martin McHugh and Sam Barkley lost their bronze medal match at the Commonwealth Games as boxer Aidan Walsh reached the quarter-finals.

However, Olympic bronze medallist boxer Walsh dominated his opening light middleweight contest to reach the quarter-finals in Birmingham.

Walsh earned a unanimous win over Lesotho’s Arena Pakela.

The Belfast man’s left jab was in Pakela’s face throughout the contest as the African simply couldn’t get near the Tokyo medallist.

Bafflingly, the Sri Lankan judge only gave Walsh a narrow 29-28 verdict with the other four correctly deciding that the Monkstown club fighter had won conclusively.

McKeever loses after cut

Walsh’s team-mate Eugene McKeever will consider himself extremely unfortunate to have been eliminated in his last-16 contest against Gambia’s Stephen Zimba.

Welterweight McKeever sustained a cut above his left eye following an accidental clash of heads in the opening round.

Initially the cut was seen to and the bout was allowed to carry on, until it reopened followed a right hand from the Gambian which prompted the referee to bring a halt to proceedings.

Disappointment for men’s pairs at bowls

McHugh and Barkley were competing for NI’s fourth bronze in Birmingham following Monday’s semi-final defeat by Wales.

Northern Ireland made a promising start to lead 2-0 after two ends before Scotland’s quality shone through.

The Scottish pair picked up a key five at the third end, followed by a four, a single and another four to lead 14-2, with Northern Ireland unable to mount a comeback.

McHugh and Barkley were back in action later on Tuesday alongside Ian McClure and Adam McKeown in the men’s fours, facing Canada at 16:15 BST.

Whitehead’s McHugh, competing at his seventh Commonwealth Games, was part of Northern Ireland’s gold medal-winning fours team in Kuala Lumpur in 1998.

In the women’s triples, Northern Ireland’s Ashleigh Rainey, Chloe Wilson and Courtney Meneely beat Falkland Islands 22-10 but NI’s women’s pair Megan Devlin and Shauna O’Neill lost 14-13 to England.

Gary Kelly won his opening men’s singles game as he defeated Norfolk Island’s Ryan Dixon 21-12.

O’Connor second after opening three heptathlon events

Northern Ireland’s Kate O’Connor moved up to second place after three events in the heptathlon following a superb shot putt.

O’Connor set a personal best of 13.74 in the 100m hurdles before clearing 1.78m in the high jump which left her fourth at that stage on 1968 points.

But as leader and favourite Katarina Johnson Thompson produced a below-par shot putt, O’Connor’s season’s best of 13.73m moved to within 11 points of the 2019 world champion.

Johnson-Thompson leads on 2755 with another English hopeful Holly Mills 18 points behind O’Connor in third place.

England’s Jade O’Dowds (2699) and Australia’s Taneille Crase (2669) also remain in medal contention with O’Connor’s Northern Ireland team-mate Anna McCauley in sixth place – 336 points off the pace.

In the women’s pole vault final, Northern Ireland’s Ellie McCartney produced a personal best of 4.25m – adding one centimetre to the mark she produced indoors in February – before bowing out after making brave attempts to clear 4.35m.

Wiffen and Hill reach swimming finals

In the pool, Daniel Wiffen and Danielle Hill both progressed to finals.

Armagh man Wiffen comfortably qualified for Wednesday evening’s men’s 1500m freestyle final, finishing second in his heat in 15 minutes 37.53 seconds.

Wiffen conserved his energy to qualify fifth fastest as his time was almost 40 seconds slower than his Irish record set last month when he just missed out on a place in the final at the World Championships.

A repeat of that sub-15 minute swim could put him in medal contention in Wednesday’s final.

Hill reached the women’s 50m backstroke final after placing fourth in her semi-final in 28.28 seconds, which left her as seventh qualifier.

The Tokyo Olympian’s time cut 0.04 off her morning semi-final performance as she reached her second final at the Games after finishing seventh in the 50m freestyle final.

Barry McClements, after winning Northern Ireland’s first ever Commonwealth Games swimming medal on Friday, had to settle for sixth place in the S10 100m butterfly final.

McClements is a S9 swimmer and was taking on against S10 competitors who are significantly faster on the clock.

The Newtownard man’s time of 1:02.95 left him over six second behind Australian winner Col Pearse, who lead the three S10 swimmers who filled the podium positions.

Mollie McAlorum clocked 31.77 to win her heat but that time was not enough to qualify, while Grace Davison (30.49) also missed out.

In gymnastics, Ewan McAteer produced a creditable performance to finish sixth in the final of the men’s vault.