Pallister & Forrester Lead Aussie Gold Rush On Day 1 In Glasgow
Aussie gold rush on a day when Chad Le Clos broke his tie with with shooters Mike Gault, of England, and Philip Adams of Australia, to set a new standard of 19 medals by a single athlete.
Lani Pallister, who last year in Singapore consigned years of struggle and setbacks to history, claimed the first gold for Australia anyone else in the pool at a 3:59.66 the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games.
The silver went to New Zealand's Erika Fairweather, the bronze to the champion's teammate Jenna Forrester, who then bounced back and claimed her own gold in the 200m backstroke in a tight battle for top honours with Scotland's Katie Shanahan and another Australian, Hannah Frederick's.
The closing 4x100m freestyle relays brought the Australian Olympic group's tally of triumphs to four on the first of six days of racing here at Tollcross International Pool.
Pallister's dominant win in the 400m freestyle was tangible from the start: when coach play the video back to their charges, they'll doubtless find the dive instructive. It's certainly and art Pallister appears to have mastered in her pursuit of Katie Ledecky's pace, before and since her silver medal an arm swing behind the American legend in the faster women's 800-m free race in history.
There was nothing of that kind of magnitude today, Pallister giving the impression that her lungs were hardly labouring as she soaked up the result on the scoreboard:
Pallister's splits:
Pallister, 24, was coached throughout her youth by her mum, three-time Commonwealth Games medallist Janelle Elford. The Games record survived to fight another day Games (3:58.06 Australian 2020ne and 2024 Olympic champion Ariarne Titmus at Birmingham 2022).
The god-daughter of Australian Living Legend Dawn Fraser - who is the mother of the Olympic triple Crown Club that now has three members (Krisztina Egerszegi, and Ledecky, the founder of the quad club over 800m in Paris) - was plagued with health issues in 2021, an eating disorder and a heart operation among challenges.
In Glasgow today, Pallister recalled those times but put them in the context of where it has all led to:
"Without all the ups and downs I wouldn't be the person or the athlete that I am today, and I think that's really special. I'm proud of the journey that I've been on and I wouldn't change it for the world. I think it's really shaped me into a good human."
Pallister revealed that her mum has been in Europe but unable to attend the Games: she's on a plane back to Australia after working at an altitude training in Sierra Nevada with the national open water swim team. Said Lani:
"It's amazing. I'm so fortunate that my mum has taken me the whole way through and kind of shown me the ropes, and Dawn as well."
She is now hot favourite for at least a triple of freestyle golds if not four or even five victories by the time racing ends on Wednesday. Beyond the 800m and 1500m freestyle events for which she's the athlete to beat, Pallister will also race in the 200m freestyle and the 4x200m relay, in which Australia are Olympic champions and favourites for the Glasgow crown once more
"The first event of the Games is always one to set the tone, so I'm happy that I can do that for the whole team," said Pallister. Her journey has included moving to train with coach Dean Boxall at St Peters Western, which in recent years has become something of a female powerhouse in women's swimming.
Jenna Forrester is there, too. After bronze in the 400m free, she retired to the fray in the 200m backstroke and punched out a surprise gold in a four-way Australia Vs Scotland tussle for the title and a six-way sub-2:20 fight for the spoils.
The race went without the defending champion, Kaylee McKeown, the most decorated female backstroke swimmer in history with four Olympic golds in her 2021 and 2024 100-200m double delights. Forrester had finished fourth in the event at the June trials and was only in the race in Glasgow because of McKeown's withdrawal suffering from fatigue as a result of glandular fever.
Fifth at halfway and still fourth at the last turn, the start of the last lap, Forrester had a lot left in her tank than her rivals: neither Shanahan nor Fredericks got under 33sec down the last lap, but the challenger chasing them down zoomed home inside 32 for the crown, Holly McGill also just over 32 but too far from the lead pace and, by the end, 0.14sec shy of the podium:
Said Forrester:
"I did not expect that to happen tonight - I am so over the moon. I didn't really have much expectation going into the 400 free or the 200 backstroke, so I'm really happy with how that went."
The Aussie day 1 bonanza came to a close with the 4x100m freestyle relays.
The women's 4x100m victory was delivered by Mollie O'Callaghan way ahead of England, which was way ahead of South African, Scotland a hand shy. The Aussie splits andthe England and South Africa line-ups in the final:
Meg HARRIS 53.07
Shayna JACK 52.64
Alex PERKINS 52.88
Mollie O'CALLAGHAN 52.81
Eva OKARO 54.50
Freya COLBERT 53.41
Leah SCHLOSSHAN 53.97
Freya ANDERSON 53.78
Aimee CANNY 54.40
Rebecca MEDER 54.46
Erin GALLAGHER 55.52
Olivia NEL 54.29
Kyle Chalmers sped under 47 bringing the Dolphins home to the men's title once more, the team's 3:09.49 a Games record inside the standard set for the crown at Birmingham 2022 by another Aussie quartet. Today's Dolphin splits and the England and South Africa line-ups in the final:
Flynn SOUTHAM 47.09
Kai TAYLOR 47.53
Harrison TURNER 47.94
Kyle CHALMERS 46.93
Jacob MILLS 48.02
James GUY 48.24
Gabriel SHEPHERD 47.73
Jacob WHITTLE 47.70
Pieter COETZE 48.38
Guy BROOKS 48.98
Ruard van RENEN 48.34
Chad le CLOS 48.29
England and South Africa took respective silver and bronze in the relays, the men's featuring an historic all-sports record - here's the tale:
Duncan Scott won the 200m medley:
Craig Lord
He now has four more shots at medals and if he hits all targets will get to 18 career Commonwealth medals, which would be one shy of the new record haul: in claiming bronze with South African teammates in the 4x100m freestyle relay won by Australia, with England taking silver, Chad Le Clos broke his tie with with shooters Mike Gault, of England, and Philip Adams of Australia, to set a new standard of 19 medals by a single athlete. The London 2012 Olympic 200m butterfly champion's 7 golds, 4 silvers and 8 bronzes were won over five Games 2010 to 2026. Here they are:
With all relays in the pool granting medals to those who raced in heats, too, the medal counts of others could also rise considerably for several other swimmers in Glasgow, Swim England's post on the men's 4x100m free reminding us of a couple of them, plus some other Day 1 snaps from some of the organisations posting shorts of their medal successes:
Example: James Guy claimed silver as his first medal this evening. That grants him 14 career medals, with six more potential medal winning events to go: 200 and 400 free; 4x200 free; 4x100 medley; both mixed relays... obviously if he races at least heats of all this relays and nails podiums in solo finals - a big ask, but possible.
Team England (men's 100m free full line up, the first four the finalists + the women's quartet :
Team New Zealand:
