Commonwealth Games round-up
Lawn bowls:
The England men's fours team followed the women toCommonwealth Games gold on another wet but glorious day at Heaton Park.
Following the stunning success of Ellen Alexander, Shirley Page, Gill Mitchell and Carol Duckworth yesterday, it was the turn of John Ottaway, Simon Skelton, Robert Newman and David Holt to step foot onto the winners' rostrum and savour the moment.
The quartet produced a magnificent performance to comfortably brush aside stubborn South Africa's Duanne Abrahams, Theuns Fraser, Kevin Campbell and Neil Burkett 22-8.
Earlier the hosts had assured themselves of at least the silver by beating Northern Ireland while Canada defeated Wales, but England were hungry for the gold medal and went on to put on an awesome show for those who had braved the bad weather.
Women's weightlifting
Wales weightlifter Michaela Breeze took one gold and two silvers in the women's 58kg final at Manchester's International Convention Centre.
The 23-year-old, who was born in Watford, was one of only four lifters competing and her successful third attempt at 87.5kgs was enough to leave her in first place in the snatch.
Canada's Maryse Turcotte took silver while India's Sunaina Sunaina took bronze.
Women's hockey
England women's Australian coach Tricia Heberle will feel no pangs of patriotism when her side line up against the Hockeyroos in tomorrow's semi-final. After the 6-1 demolition of Scotland, the whole squad is on high as they prepare to face the defending champions, who are also Olympic and world champions.
"I'm a professional and I have embraced my girls. I think they are fantastic and I won't be spending time looking over my shoulder tomorrow," said Heberle.
England totally outclassed Scotland - who had only one shot on target all game - as Ipswich forward Leisa King hit a hat-trick.
Men's hockey
England's bid for a medal ended in glorious failure this afternoon after bad luck and a host of missed chances left them 1-0 losers to South Africa.
The hosts had by far the better chances, especially in the first half, and in the second half saw the width of a post deny them a more than deserved equaliser from Surbiton's James Wallis.
This was England's best performance of the tournament, full of attacking intent and invention.
However, they paid the ultimate price for one defensive mistake by Cannock midfielder Michael Johnson which allowed Emile Smith to score the decisive goal.
Swimming:
British swimmers kept their medal hopes alive in the pool today, breaking records in the heats, while Ian Thorpe maintained his quest for seven Commonwealth golds, easing through his 200m freestyle heat as the fastest qualifier.
The 'Thorpedo' will not be the sole object of interest for the home crowd today, with England's Jamie Slater, Scotland's David Carry and Wales's David Davies also qualifying for this evening's final (20:30) along with Guernsey pair Jonathon Le Noury and Ben Lowndes.
Meanwhile England's Sarah Price shattered the Games 100m backstroke record with a time of one minute 1.16 seconds in her heat to carve 0.90secs off the previous best - set moments earlier by Canada's Dyana Calub - and reach this evening's semi-final.
Price will be joined by team-mates Joanna Fargus and Katy Sexton, while Wales will be represented by Bethan Coole. Natalie Bree flying the flag for Jersey.
England's 200m medal heroes Karen Legg and Karen Pickering are in the hunt for more success after reaching the semis of the 100m freestyle alongside team-mate Melanie Marshall. Scotland's Alison Sheppard set the second quickest time of the heats while Wales' Catrin Davies and Northern Ireland's Julie Douglas also made progress.
Scottish duo Cameron Black and Todd Cooper qualified for the semi-finals of the 50m butterfly, as did English duo Mark Foster and James Hickman.
England will have a trio of swimmers in the semi-finals of the 100m breaststroke too after Darren Mew, Adam Whitehead and James Gibson all made progress. Northern Ireland have two representatives following good swims from Andrew Bree and Michael Williamson while Ian Edmond is the sole Scot.
Men's table tennis
Owen Griffiths needed less than 10 minutes to wrap up victory in his opening group match of the men's singles.
The 18-year-old from Wales demolished Tuvalu's Teokila Maleko 11-4 11-6 11-3 but Scotland's Niall Cameron is unlikely to qualify after losing 11-7 11-5 9-11 11-5 to Asim Qureshi of Pakistan.
Squash:
On the squash court England's men's doubles campaign got off to the perfect start when Mark Chaloner and Paul Johnson beat the Lesotho duo of Keabetsoe and Lentsoe Monnapula 2-0.
Wales suffered, though, at the hands of Malaysia's Kelvin Ho and Sharon Wee in the mixed event with Katrina Hogan and Scott Fitzgerald crashing to a 2-0 defeat.
Judo:
After a stunning medal haul yesterday, Britain's judo competitors started where they left off.
England's Thomas Cousins made quick work of his first-round opponent Gerard Baker of the Seychelles in the under-81 kilogram division.
Welshman Luke Preston also made it safely through to the quarter-finals with victory over Morgan Endicott-Davies of Australia.
Weightlifting:
Stewart Cruikshank got England's day up and running with a bronze in the weightlifting 69kg final.
And finally...
Kirsty Coventry hopes the swimming gold medal she won for Zimbabwe at the Commonwealth Games will lift people's spirits in a country becoming increasingly engulfed in political and economic chaos.
Zimbabwe has had visa and assets sanctions imposed on it by the European Union and was suspended from the Commonwealth group of 54 countries after controversial elections last March, when president Mugabe was reinstated, led to political unrest.
The situation follows two years of turmoil when self-styled war veterans invaded white-owned farms to back government distribution of land to landless blacks.
Coventry won Zimbabwe's first medal of the Manchester Games and a first-ever gold in swimming for her country when she surprised everybody by beating Australian Jennifer Reilly and Canadian Marianne Limpert into the silver and bronze medal positions in the 200 metres individual medley today.
She set a Games record with her time of two minutes 14.53 seconds and is keen that her success sould bring cheer to her compatriots at home.
"It's very important for the country," Coventry said. "Hopefully it'll give everyone back home something to smile about and lift everyone's spirits up, which is what is needed."