Turner tumbles, Warner consolidates

The men’s 110m hurdles was blown wide open when England’s defending champion Andy Turner pulled up and Jamaica’s Olympic bronze medallist Hansle Parchment was a non-starter. Turner was off-kilter out of the blocks, clipped the first two hurdles and pulled up before stumbling into the third to bring a premature, and angry, end to his Games’ participation. “I got too close to the first hurdle and hit the second one and that was it,” said Turner, also a world bronze medallist from Daegu in 2011. “It was a schoolboy error. I’m gutted as I have been training well coming into the Games.”

With Parchment failing to even make it to the start line, the field has now been opened up, and Jamaica’s Andrew Riley, Barbadian 2009 world champion Ryan Brathwaite and England’s William Sharman will all fancy their chances in the final at Hampden Park later Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Canada’s Damian Warner remained atop the decathlon as teammate and world silver medallist Brianne Thiesen-Eaton kicked off the heptathlon as massive favourite. Warner, with an overnight score of 4378 points, raced the 110m hurdles in an impressive 13.50 seconds and managed a season’s best of 41.31m in the discus to sit on 6109pts with just the pole vault, javelin and 1500m to come.

Thiesen-Eaton, wife of US world and Olympic decathlon champion Ashton Eaton, clocked 13.18sec in the opening 100m

hurdles, upstaged by compatriot Jessica Zelinka, who set a Games record of 12.83sec. The Canadian high jumped a best of 1.84m for a total of 2126 pts, Zelinka in second (1992). The heptathletes compete in the shot put and 200m in the evening session, with the long jump, javelin and 800m to come on Wednesday.

David dedicates win to Malaysia

Nicol David hopes her gold medal in squash at the Commonwealth Games can offer “a little bit of a boost” for her home country of Malaysia after the anguish caused by two airline tragedies. David dashed from the court to greet Malaysian fans celebrating their country’s 50th gold medal in Commonwealth Games history. More than 6,500 miles (10,000 kms) from home, Malaysia’s sporting icon provided a flash of joy Monday, fighting back to beat Laura Massaro 12-10, 11-2, 11-5 in the final in Glasgow.

David says she hopes her victory “can play a role in bringing a little bit of a boost for our country because we have gone through a tough time.”

Based in Amsterdam, David had flown the same MH-17 route to Kuala Lumpur that saw a Malaysian Airlines jet shot down earlier this month over Ukraine. Malaysia was already struggling to cope with the loss of MH-370, which vanished after takeoff in March.

Nick Matthew won the men’s singles gold when he beat fellow Englishman James Willstrop 11-9, 8-11, 11-5, 6-11, 11-5.