Jones narrowly misses world record

Australia’s Leisel Jones missed out on breaking her own world record, but she annihilated the Commonwealth Games mark in taking out the women’s 200m breaststroke tonight.

The 20-year-old Olympic and World Champion finally added the Commonwealth title to her resume as she crushed Samantha Riley’s 12-year-old record by nearly five seconds with a clinical display in the final.

Despite qualifying second fastest behind Scotland’s Kirsty Balfour, ‘Lethal Leisel’ came in as the unbackable favourite and she demonstrated her superiority by leading comfortably at every turn, winning in a time of 2:20.72.

Along the way, Jones flirted with her own world mark, set at the very same pool last month, before settling for the Games record as she finished four seconds clear of Balfour (2:24.04), with South Africa’s Suzaan Van Biljon (2:25.39) claiming the bronze. Australians Brooke Hanson and Sally Foster faded after strong starts to take fourth and fifth positions respectively.

The triumph took Jones’ personal Games gold medal tally to two, after her unexpected victory last night in the women’s 50m breaststroke and she now looks set to complete a clean sweep of the individual breaststroke events.

There was more Australian success in the women’s 100m backstroke, with Sophie Edington (1:00.93) coming from behind to prevail over a tiring leader, Hannah McLean (NZ). Giaan Rooney finished strongly to slip into second place and complete an Aussie quinella, while England’s Melanie Marshall pushed McLean out of the medals.

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