It's the turn of the men's discus as we look event-by-event at the history of the the Commonwealth Games

Two days after winning gold in the shot, Harry Hart won a second gold in Hamilton in 1930 as he won a close contest in the discus. The South African also won double gold in London in 1934, by a margin of a metre in the discus.

Eric Coy improved the record by three metres in Sydney in 1938 to give Canada the gold as Scotland’s David Young won silver. Five days later he won silver in the shot. In Auckland in 1950, it was time for Australia to win their first title with Ian Reed adding a further three metres to the Games record but the event was still well below world-class.

The standard jumped again in Vancouver 1954 as Stephanus ‘Fanie’ Du Plessis achieved the first 50m throw of the Games with British record-holder Mark Pharaoh in third. The South African was even better in Cardiff in 1958 and he set a Commonwealth record of 55.93m with Kiwi Les Mills a distant second.

The record didn’t survive the next Games in Perth as left-handed home athlete Warwick Selvey won with 56.48m almost four metres up on Scotland’s Mike Lindsay. Mills was only f fth in 1962 when the wind conditions didn’t help him but he made no mistake at the third attempt in Kingston in 1966 as he narrowly defeated Commonwealth record-holder George Puce.

Latvian-born Puce reversed positions with Mills in Edinburgh in 1970 as he improved the Games record to 59.02m. That record was annihilated in 1974 in Christchurch by Robin Tait’s 63.08m. Tait had never shown such form in his three previous Games appearances over the previous 12 years, finishing fourth, third and sixth. England’s Bill Tancred and now top British coach John Hillier took the other medals with shot champion Geoff Capes in fifth.

Tait just missed a medal in fourth in Edmonton in 1978 as Canadian Borys Chambul won. Peter Tancred was the leading Briton in sixth after his brother had finished ninth, third and second in the three previous Games.

Bahamian Brad Cooper won his country’s second Commonwealth medal and four years later in Brisbane, he won gold easily with 64.04m. Tait was eighth in a record sixth Games. The Bahamas were absent in Edinburgh in 1986 due to the boycott and the title reverted back to Canada as Ray Lazdins won an uneventful, poor-standard competition. Eighteen-year-old Werner Reiterer finished third and the Australian advanced to second in Auckland in 1990 but was beaten by a metre by Nigeria’s US-based Adewale Olukoju, who became the first black African to win a throws gold. Previous champions Cooperand Lazdins were fourth and sixth. Olukoju threw a similar distance in Victoria in 1994 – in fact 62.46m twice – but he was narrowly beaten by a maturing Reiterer’s 62.76m.

Bob Weir became the first Briton to better 60 metres in the Games and took bronze, 12 years after winning gold in the hammer. In 1998 in Kuala Lumpur, the remarkable Weir advanced to gold medallist in his second event and became the first British man to ever win a discus title at any major championships, including European and Olympics. It was close, though, as his 64.42m Games record edged Frantz Kruger’s 63.93m, which would have won gold in every Games bar 1982.

The South African returned in Manchester in 2002 and improved Weir’s record to a superb 66.39, Weir, by then aged 41, won bronze, to give him a record equalling 20-year-span between his first and last medals. In Melbourne in 2006, Scott Martin won gold for the home nation in a reasonable-depth competition in which six bettered 60 metres.

The gold stayed in Australian hands in Delhi when Benn Harradine excelled with 65.45m as Carl Myerscough went one place better than he did in the shot to gain an English bronze.

Gold medal winners

1930 Harry Hart (RSA) 41.43
1934 Harry Hart (RSA) 41.53
1938 Eric Coy (CAN) 44.76
1950 Ian Reed (AUS) 47.72
1954 Fanie Du Plessis (RSA) 51.70
1958 Fanie Du Plessis (RSA) 55.93
1962 Warwick Selvey (AUS) 56.47
1966 Les Mills (NZL) 56.18
1970 George Puce (CAN) 59.02
1974 Robin Tait (NZL) 63.08
1978 Borys Chambul (CAN) 59.70
1982 Brad Cooper (BAH) 64.04
1986 Ray Lazdins (CAN) 58.86
1990 Adewale Olukoju (NGR) 62.62
1994 Werner Reiterer (AUS) 62.76
1998 Bob Weir (ENG) 64.42
2002 Frantz Kruger (RSA) 66.39
2006 Scott Martin (AUS) 63.48
2010 Benn Harradine (AUS) 65.45

British medallists

Gold: Bob Weir (Eng, 1998)
Silver: Douglas Bell (Eng, 1934), David Young (Sco, 1938), Mike Lindsay (Sco, 1962), Bill Tancred (Eng, 1974)
Bronze: Mark Pharaoh (Eng, 1954), Gerry Carr (Eng, 1958), John Sheldrick (Eng, 1962), Bill Tancred (Eng, 1970), John Hillier (Eng, 1974), Weir (Eng, 2002), Carl Myerscough (Eng, 2010)
Most successful athlete and Briton: The only double champions are South Africans Hart and Du Plessis while Bob Weir is the only British champion and also won a bronze.

» Find other event-by-event histories here and an overall history of the Commonwealth Games here