Cornel blows out world champion

Cornel Fredericks blew away a field featuring the reigning world champion to claim the Commonwealth Games 400m hurdles crown at a wet Hampden Park last night.

Fredericks was the favourite in Glasgow. Ranked No1 in the Commonwealth, he went the fastest in the heats and then led almost from the start of the final to capture Team South Africa's 11th gold of the Games.

It was another profitable day in the competition, with five more medals in all, including a lawn bowls gold and wrestling bronze.

Andre Olivier snatched the 800m bronze at the death of an enthralling race, overhauling a Kenyan and an Australian just before the line. But ahead of him was a titanic tussle between Olympic champion David Rudisha and London 2012 runner-up Nijel Amos of Botswana.

But this time Amos, Olivier's training partner in Potchefstroom, rocketed past the Kenyan to win in 1min 45.18sec. Rudisha was second in 1:45.48.

"I think the last 50m I just closed my eyes and hoped for bronze," admitted Olivier, who clocked 1:46.03 to beat Cherulyot Rotich of Kenya by six-hundredths of a second.

Fredericks said his strategy was to go out fast to eliminate his main rival, world champion Jehue Gordon of Trinidad and Tobago.

"I told myself today is my day. I knew he [Gordon] is going to come back hard at the end, so I had to go out fast."

"With 100m to go I remembered my late coach Bruce Longden saying: 'You must stay tall'," said Fredericks of his former mentor, who died in 2012.

Fredericks was chuffed with his time of 48.50sec.

"That can get you into the final of any top championship. I don't want to be just another hurdler, I want to be one of the best."

In athletics action elsewhere, Akani Simbine ended fifth in the 200m final in a 20.37sec personal best, but Jamaican Rasheed Dwyer's winning time of 20.14 would have been within range of SA's Anaso Jobodwana, who missed the Games with an injury.

Victor "Hulk" Hogan ended a disappointing 10th in the men's discus after registering the second-best distance in qualifying.

In the open trips disabled category, SA beat New Zealand 13-11 in a tough encounter for gold and the women's trips beat Wales 23-14 in the bronze play-off.

Armando Hietbrink won wrestling bronze in the men's freestyle 86kg division.

By last night Team SA's medal tally had grown to 36, surpassing the 33 they won at Delhi 2010 and the 34 of Kuala Lumpur 1998.

With two more gongs in the bag - Colleen Piketh and Tracy-Lee Botha will this morning attempt to win lawn bowls' fifth gold of the Games in the women's pairs - they are certain at least to equal the 38 won at Melbourne 2006.

But SA's fifth place from those three Games is in jeopardy: they still lie seventh in Glasgow.

The trips team of Deon van de Vyfer, Roger Hagerty and Derrick Lobban are registered in the B6/B7/B8 categories but they attacked like B-52 bombers in the third and fourth ends yesterday.

Leading 2-1 after two ends, they flew to 4-1 after three and then 7-1 after four, but any thoughts of a runaway win over an outfit they had drawn with 10-10 in the round robin phase were quickly doused.

New Zealand struck back to draw level at 7-7 after seven ends, and from there it was a ding-dong battle, with the SA trio just keeping their noses in front.

It came down to the final wood of the match, with which skip Lobban denied New Zealand a play-off by removing the jack.

"It's huge, hey, absolutely huge," Lobban said after he had emerged from dope testing.

"The New Zealand guys contested well and they held us.

The lawn bowlers have delivered four gold medals for SA, more than any other code - including swimming, which garnered three.