English athlete lands first major outdoor long jump honour after her arduous comeback from Achilles rupture.

In recent years, Jazmin Sawyers has not had it easy. The high of winning European Indoor gold back in 2023 was followed by the crushing blow of a ruptured Achilles tendon on her take-off leg that wrecked her Olympic dream in 2024.

The injury needed surgery, meaning she spent 20 months away from competition. The comeback was arduous but she refused to give up hope and, in Glasgow on Saturday night (August 1), all of the 32-year-old’s painstaking work was rewarded with Commonwealth gold, the first global outdoor title of her long career. 

It was a fourth-round leap of 6.93m (2.7) that brought the moment of joy she had been searching for. Ruth Osoro had been leading the way with her opening jump of 6.87m (2.7) but the Nigerian had no response to her English opponent, who also posted 6.90m in round five. Brooke Buschkuehl was third with 6.80m.

“It's been a bit of a journey, hasn't it?” said Sawyers, who won silver the last time the Commonwealth Games were staged in Glasgow, in 2014. “It feels so good because I always felt it was something I was capable of. 

“Since Glasgow, I hadn't managed to make the podium at the Commonwealth Games. I competed at two more Games, and last time I finished fourth. That fourth place in Birmingham was one of the hardest results of my career because I felt I'd performed really well. I started wondering whether I could still win medals. 

“I did go on to win a few after that, but then I ruptured my Achilles. At that point you think: ‘I'm going to try to come back’. I'd seen friends do it and prove it was possible, but the question was whether I could do it myself. Well, today I proved that I could.”

Kurtis Marschall, meanwhile, has had an eventful summer. At the Stockholm Diamond League he became the first man to beat world record-holder Mondo Duplantis since 2023 and, in Glasgow, the Australian not only won his third consecutive Commonwealth pole vault title but broke the Games record to boot. 

Having entered the competition at 5.40m, he followed that up with first-time clearances of 5.60m, 5.70m and 5.80m. South African Kyle Rademeyer and England's Owen Heard matched that record up until 5.70m, a height at which the former needed two attempts to clear and the latter three. Both tried to go over 5.80m – Australian Steve Hooker’s previous Games record – but couldn’t keep up with the leader. 

With Rademeyer confirmed in second and Heard third, it left the stage clear for Marschall to attempt to surpass his fellow countryman’s 20-year-old mark. He did just that, going over 5.85m at the second time of asking. 

“Being the only one competing at the end there and just having the whole crowd watching and trying to go for that record was super special," he said. "It's not quite six metres, but it's a Games record, and I'm going to take that to the day I die.” 

There was further Australian success in the field as Mackenzie Little’s opening throw of 61.88m saw her upgrade her 2022 Commonwealth javelin silver to gold. The two-time world bronze medallist won by more than a metre-and-a-half, with New Zealand's Tori Moorby taking silver thanks to her third-round 60.44m and bronze going to Kenya's Irene Kepkemboi (57.85m).

Australia have now won the women’s javelin at the  last four editions of the Commonwealth Games – a different athlete winning each time.