Glasgow has always held a special place in Jazmin Sawyers’ heart and it might just be her favourite city of all after she claimed long jump gold.
It was 12 years ago that Sawyers announced herself on the international stage with a surprise silver medal the last time the Commonwealth Games were held in Glasgow.
She has been through the full gamut of emotions in the years since, most heartbreaking when she suffered a torn Achilles that ruled her out of the Olympics in Paris two years ago.
But she put all that heartache behind her to produce a leap of 6.93m with her fourth jump of the long jump final to take an emotional victory.
She said: “It hasn't properly hit me how this is the thing I've been telling myself all the horrible bits are for.
“The feeling is overwhelming. I will do the horrible bits 100 times over, I'll do it and do it and do it. This is amazing.
"12 years on almost to the day, I won a silver here in Glasgow at my first major championships. It was a shock silver and I've held Glasgow close to my heart ever since.
“It was the start of my career and so sensational and I had the time of my life and I take that as one of the best moments of my entire career but when you've done that there's only one thing to do which is to upgrade.”
On a busy final night on the track, Sawyers’ gold was part of a complete set of medals for Team England, with silver delivered by the mixed 4x400m relay team.
Ben Jefferies, Yemi Mary John, Toby Harries and Lina Nielsen timed their race perfectly to take silver behind Jamaica, with Nielsen finishing strongly to overhaul Nigeria’s Ella Onojuvwevwo, the individual bronze medal winner, on the final straight.
Nielsen said: “We knew the Nigerians and Jamiacans would be big threats. The surprise was not having Jamaica in front of me. The crowd got me going for the last 70-80m. My 400ms have really improved this year and I trusted my training.”
And the medals did not stop there as Owen Heard claimed bronze in the men’s pole vault with a clearance of 5.70m.
He managed that on his final attempt having made every previous height at the first time of asking.
Heard said: “I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a proper dogfight out there it was like Gladiators. We were going toe to toe. I was in silver then bronze then nearly cleared a PB to go back up to silver. It was so good. It was a really good standard of competition, maybe even the best standard of Commonwealth pole vault ever. Me and the boys we put on a good show. I had loads of support out there. Everyone was clapping for me and I loved it."
Elsewhere, there was frustration for Ben Pattison and Alex Botterill in the men’s 800m, finishing fourth and fifth respectively, while both men’s and women’s 4x100m relays came home fifth.
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