Mack Horton grabbed Australia’s first gold of the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games, winning the men’s 400m freestyle final at the Optus Aquatic Centre on Thursday 5 April.
The 400m freestyle Rio 2016 Olympic champion started in lane four as the fastest qualifier, but trailed behind England’s James GUY, who won bronze at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games, and teammate Jack McLoughlin.
HORTON made his move at the halfway mark, moving into second, and took the lead with less than 100m to go. He left no doubt as to why he is the Olympic champion in the final stretch, touching in 3 minutes, 43.76 seconds to win not just Australia’s first gold of the Games, but the first Commonwealth Games gold for Australia in the event since Ian THORPE’s win 16 years ago in Manchester.
McLOUGHLIN (3:45.21) made it an Australian one-two, touching just ahead of GUY (3:45.32), who had to settle for another bronze.
GNS aw/ab