Category: Swimming & Diving

• European Aquatics Championships taking place in city

• Threat to water quality tested two years after Games

Paris is staging its first high-diving competition in the Seine, with athletes launching themselves from a 20-metre platform in front of the Eiffel Tower – a spectacular new test of the city’s effort to reclaim its river for sport. The event on the Pont de Bir-Hakeim has also exposed the fragility of that ambition.

Organisers suspended training on Thursday when traces of hydrocarbons were detected upstream. By Friday, the French Swimming Federation said the affected area had been treated, allowing athletes to return to the water and the event to proceed as planned. High diving concludes on Saturday with the final two rounds and medal events, while the broader European Aquatics Championships run through to 16 August.

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After a rollercoaster week at the Commonwealth Games, the double Olympic champion says he will never stop believing what he can achieve

“I couldn’t switch off because it’s been a real rollercoaster of a week,” Adam Ramsay-Peaty says with a weary smile on a quiet Thursday morning in Glasgow. He has just endured a rough night in which, after winning his third medal of the Commonwealth Games, he managed less than three hours of sleep. The medals consist of bronze in the 100m and 50m breaststroke and a silver in the men’s 4x100m medley. For most swimmers this would constitute success and satisfaction, but Ramsay-Peaty is different.

The fact that none of his three medals are gold, or attached to anything remotely like the kind of supreme performance that Ramsay-Peaty churned out with an aura of invincibility for eight years, has taken a chunk out of the double Olympic champion. There have been tears of frustration and an admission that “nothing makes sense this week”.

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The six-day swim meet in Glasgow ended with 37 gold, 16 silver and 23 bronze medals, masking a subtle but significant changing of the guard

• Commonwealth Games medal table

Heading into these Commonwealth Games, the Australian swim team had no Kaylee McKeown (absent through illness), no Ariarne Titmus (following her shock retirement last year) and Mollie O’Callaghan battered by injury (a spinal stress fracture and a shoulder complaint). The Dolphins would have been forgiven for nursing some concern. It turns out they needn’t have worried.

On Wednesday evening in Glasgow, Australia rounded out the swim program in historic style. Having levelled the record for most gold medals won at the competition on the penultimate night (28 – equal with the 2018 home Games on the Gold Coast), the Dolphins obliterated that mark with one final night of triumph at the Tollcross Swimming Centre. A run of individual wins and success in both medley relays saw the team end the six-day meet with 37 gold, 16 silver and 23 bronze medals across the able-bodied and para-swimming disciplines.

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• Meg Harris new 100m freestyle champion as Alex Perkins lifts 100m butterfly crown

• Jenna Forrester adds 400m individual medley title to her 200m backstroke gold

Mollie O’Callaghan has been sensationally dethroned as Commonwealth Games 100m freestyle champion by Meg Harris as the Australian tsunami of swimming medals gushed relentlessly in Glasgow.

Harris’s shock triumph came after Jenna Forrester continued her brilliant meet with a second gold medal, adding the 400m individual medley title to her 200m backstroke crown.

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• Australia takes home gold, silver and bronze medals in men’s 50m freestyle final as Cam McEvoy dominates

• Lani Pallister cruises to victory in women’s 1500m freestyle final

Cam McEvoy has added another chapter to his swimming renaissance, dominating the 50m freestyle final at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games.

The 32-year-old was the only finalist to go under 21 seconds as he led an Australian medal sweep ahead of Flynn Southam and Jamie Jack.

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• Gymnast burst into tears after leading Australia to team gold

• Five more gold in pool on as Sam Williamson beats British breaststroke great

The star gymnast Georgia Godwin has no more tears left to cry, having survived the “horrible, horrible” road back from injury to guide Australia to a team gold medal at the Commonwealth Games.

Meanwhile in the pool, Australia are turning the Tollcross Swimming Centre into a fortress after Sam Williamson, Sam Short and Mollie O’Callaghan led a parade of five gold medals on day two in Glasgow.

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• Australian wins 400m freestyle, Forrester stuns in 200m backstroke

• Women’s and men’s 4x100 freestyle relay teams cap dominant day one

Lani Pallister has consigned years of struggle and setbacks to history, opening Australia’s medal tally at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games with the first of six gold medals in the pool. Pallister’s dominant win in the 400m freestyle – the first final on the Games swimming program – was the perfect start to a Glasgow campaign that is expected to reap her a rich medal haul.

Mollie O’Callaghan later spearheaded a comfortable win in the women’s 4x100 freestyle relay, while the men’s 4x100 freestyle team rounded out the session by ruthlessly capturing Australia’s sixth gold medal. Kyle Chalmers closed clinically to ensure Australia smashed their Games record from Birmingham 2022, winning in 3:09.49.

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• Swimmers to earn $30,000 per world record, $20,000 for a gold medal

• Commonwealth Games Australia gives each team member $5,000

Freestyle king Kyle Chalmers has welcomed potential windfalls for Australia’s Commonwealth Games swimmers after Gina Rinehart offered up cash bonuses for medals and world records.

Amid a spate of high-profile athlete withdrawals from Glasgow 2026, Dolphins squad members have been given a significant incentive to take part. Billionaire Rinehart has confirmed she will deliver the same bonuses that were on offer in the pool at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

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• Australian athlete, 27, won two Olympic gold medals in Paris

• Jack served a doping ban after Ligandrol was found in her system

Australian swimmer Shayna Jack has announced she will retire after the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

In a video posted on Instagram in which Jack spoke with her coach Dean Boxall, the freestyler fought back tears as she said the Games – from 23 July to 2 August – would be her competitive swan song.

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• Swimmer withdraws from Australia team due to bout of glandular fever

• Illness to prevent 24-year-old from defending four titles in Glasgow

Swim champion Kaylee McKeown is “gutted” that illness has forced her out of the Commonwealth Games in a major blow to Australia’s team.

McKeown’s Commonwealth Games career is over after battling glandular fever ahead of the Glasgow edition starting in 13 days.

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• Gkolomeev pipped McEvoy’s legal WR by only 0.07s

• ‘Missile’ Magnussen finished last in both freestyle races

Australian world record-breaking swimmer Cam McEvoy has had a clear dig at the inaugural Enhanced Games.

Greek swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev went under McEvoy’s 50m freestyle world record time at the Games, held on Monday in Las Vegas.

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