SA bag medal 2

Richard Murray and Siyabulela Mabulu yesterday showed Team South Africa how to win Commonwealth Games medals.

Murray claimed the country's first gong of the Glasgow 2014 showpiece on the opening day, a bronze in the triathlon, and Mabulu added a 66kg bronze in the judo.

Other highlights featured Marsha Cox's hockey ladies thrashing Trinidad and Tobago 16-0, and Roland Schoeman and Chad Le Clos showing they were in the mix for 50m butterfly gold tonight.

But Team SA found the going tough elsewhere yesterday, with some medal dreams in tatters and dreamers in tears.

Murray lived up to his billing as a contender as he crafted a strategic race to secure a bronze that goes down as SA's first triathlon gong at a multi-code event.

There was never any doubt about the triathlon gold and silver, which went to England's all-conquering Brownlee brothers, Alistair and Jonathan, who were unchallenged after blowing off Scottish hopeful Marc Austin in the cycle.

Murray was 16th coming out the water - swimming is his weakest event of the three - and he patiently worked his way up the field.

At the start of the 10km run, Murray quickly shook off his nearest rivals and from then on there was no doubt about him claiming the last available podium spot.

"Wow," the 25-year-old gasped soon after crossing the line in 1hr50min21sec.

Mabulu, from Zwide in Port Elizabeth, admitted he was disappointed to have missed out on gold.

A full-time judoka, thanks to a sponsorship from the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee, Mabulu is also eyeing the Rio Games in 2016.

His judo teammate Daniel le Grange was not as happy after losing his 60kg bronze medal match by an ippon, failing to blink back the tears as he departed the mat.

"I needed a medal to keep my funding," he said.

Weightlifting medal hope Portia Vries crashed out without recording a successful lift. But the highest-profile casualties came in the pool, particularly for schoolgirl Marlies Ross, who cost her relay team a spot in last night's final.

Ross hurried off the pool deck in tears after getting the team disqualified for diving in too early during the 4x100m freestyle relay.

She was 0.17sec too eager, but had she taken an extra breath or two before launching herself into the water, her SA team would still have comfortably broken the SA record of 3min 45.56sec.

They clocked an unofficial 3:44.86, which would have been the fourth-fastest of the morning.

Myles Brown, touted as a medal contender in the men's 400m freestyle, failed to get past the heats, clocking the ninth-fastest time of the morning.

Karin Prinsloo made the 200m freestyle final where she ended last. Schoeman and Le Clos will face stiff competition from England's Benjamin Proud, who was the quickest of last night's semifinalists in 23.16.

"I'm doing my own thing, I'm not worried about what others do," said Schoeman, who clocked 23.25 to win the first semifinal.

Le Clos was chuffed with his 23.29 personal best in the other race. "The pressure is on the others."