2026 Commonwealth Games: Day 1 Finals Live Recap

2026 COMMONWEALTH GAMES

• July 24th – July 29th 2026 (pool swimming)
• Tollcross International Swimming Centre, Glasgow, Scotland
• LCM (50m)
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We’re about to see the first evening session of the 2026 Commonwealth Games unfold with several of the top performers of the competition ready to rumble on both the men’s and women’s sides.

As a reminder, individual events 200m and over move from prelims into semi-finals, as will be the case for the men’s 50m back, women’s 50m fly and men’s 100m breast. For the medal-contending races this evening, we’ll be treated to the women’s 400m free, men’s 200m IM and the 4x100m free relay for both.

Entering the final, World champion Erika Fairweather of New Zealand holds a narrow lead over Aussies Lani Pallister, Jenna Forrester and Amelia Weber in the 4free.

Fairweather and Pallister are members of the exclusive sub-4:00 club, an association to which just seven women in history belong.

One thing that’s guaranteed is that the podium will look entirely different than four years ago, where absentees Summer McIntosh of Canada reaped gold, Ariarne Titmus of Australia nabbed silver and teammate Kiah Melverton bagged the bronze.

Immediately thereafter we’ll have the men’s 200m IM final on-deck, an event in which this morning’s top five performers were remarkably separated by just .11.

Aussie William Petric will be seeking his first senior international medal as the field leader but he has two-time Olympic silver medalist and reigning Commonwealth Games champion Duncan Scott of the host nation in his path as the 5th seed.

Throw in Olympic multi-medalist and 2022 Games silver medalist Tom Dean, his English stalwart teammate Max Litchfield and Kiwi national record holder and reigning bronze medalist Lewis Clareburt and this is another must-watch race with a Games record potentially at risk.

Hannah Fredericks leads the 2back field for Australia but will have Scotland’s Holly McGill and Katie Shanahan hot on her heels, along with Forrester who turned in a tough double to pair this race with her 4free.

Additional swimmers in the water for their semi-finals include Pieter Coetze of South Africa after putting up a new Games Record in the 50m back, Alex Perkins in the 50m fly and Adam Ramsay-Peaty in the 100m breaststroke.

The high-octane 4x100m free relays will seal up tonight’s session, where Australia enters as the top-seeded squads.

WOMEN’S 400 FREESTYLE – FINAL

• World Record – 3:54.18, Summer McIntosh (CAN), 2025
• Commonwealth Record – 3:54.18, Summer McIntosh (CAN), 2025
• Commonwealth Games Record – 3:58.06, Ariarne Titmus (AUS), 2022
• 2022 Champion – Ariarne Titmus (AUS), 3:58.06

GOLD – Lani Pallister (AUS), 3:59.56
SILVER – Erika Fairweather (NZL), 4:02.65
BRONZE – Jenna Forrester (AUS), 4:05.25

24-year-old Lani Pallister attacked this women’s 400m free final with gusto from her very first stroke, leading the field wire-to-wire to fire off a big-time result of 3:59.56 as the gold medalist.

New Zealand’s national record older and world champion Erika Fairweather stayed within about half a second of the Aussie until about the 300m mark when Pallister widened her gap to hold about a second advantage which further extended to the end of the race.

Fairweather settled for silver in 4:02.65.

Pallister’s teammate Jenna Forrester made it onto the podium in 4:05.25, good enough for bronze with a time about one second off her personal best of 4:04.30 from last month’s Trials.

Amelia Weber, also from Australia, finished 4th in 4:08.70, as Ching Hwee Gan turned in a super solid lifetime best of 4:09.34 to bump herself from 8th out of the heats to 5th overall in a new Singaporean national record.

Pallister’s lifetime best remains at the 3:58.87 notched at the 2025 World Championships to sit only behind retired Olympic champion Ariarne Titmus as the 2nd-best Aussie woman in history.

Fairweather’s best-ever remains positioned at the 3:59.44 she clocked as 2024 world champion to join the exclusive 7-woman club of sub-4:00 performers.

As swift as Pallister and Fairweather each were tonight, they both have been even faster already this season. Pallister already ranks 3rd in the world, courtesy of the 3:59.36 she posted at April’s Australian Championships. Fairweather’s time of 4:01.42 from May’s NZL Championships ranks her 5th on the planet.

MEN’S 200 IM – FINAL

• World Record – 1:52.69, Leon Marchand (FRA), 2025
• Commonwealth Record – 1:55.28, Duncan Scott (GBR), 2021
• Commonwealth Games Record – 1:56.88, Duncan Scott (SCO), 2022
• 2022 Champion – Duncan Scott (SCO), 1:56.88

GOLD – Duncan Scott (SCO), 1:56.38 *Commonwealth Games Record*
SILVER – Lewis Clareburt (NZL), 1:56.77
BRONZE – Tom Dean (ENG), 1:57.22

The same trio of men’s 200m IM swimmers from the 2022 Commonwealth Games podium repeated this time around, albeit in a slightly different order.

Two-time Olympic silver medalist Duncan Scott put on quite the performance, reaping the top spot in a speedy time of 1:56.38 to successfully defend his gold from Birmingham. That checked in just inside his list of top 10 personal performance, one which boasts a British record of 1:55.28 from becoming the runner-up at the 2020 Olympic Games.

Scott overwrote his own Commonwealth Games Record by a significant margin, with the former resting at 1:56.88 from four years ago.

But the decorated 29-year-old from Scotland wasn’t alone under the 1:57-barrier, as Lewis Clareburt lowered his own New Zealand national record down to a super swift result of 1:56.77.

That erased his former PB and Kiwi benchmark of 1:57.06 nabbed at the 2025 World Championships. Clareburt is getting closer to retired Aussie Olympian Mitch Larkin‘s longstanding Oceanian record of 1:55.72 from 2019.

Tom Dean, last year’s silver medalist in this 2IM, was rendered the bronze medalist tonight in 1:57.22, the 10th-best outing of his career. Of note, Dean produced the only sub-48-second split on this morning’s heats of the men’s 4x100m free relay, hitting 47.99.

Top-seeded William Petric of Australia found himself off the podium, falling to 4th place in 1:57.87, less than a second outside his best-ever mark of 1:57.18 from the 2025 Queensland Championships. Petric also raced on the green and gold’s relay this morning.

Of note, Clareburt and Petric are training partners, with the Kiwi having joined Nunawading.

As a reminder Dean, did not compete at the Aquatics GB Championships due to a shoulder injury and was discretionarily selected onto Team England for these Games. There in London, Scott won the 2IM in 1:56.08, slightly under tonight’s outing, to rank 4th in the world.

WOMEN’S S13 100 FREESTYLE – FINAL

• Commonwealth Games Record – Not Established
• 2022 Champion – N/A

GOLD – Jenna Jones (AUS), 1:03.89
SILVER – Ela Letton-Jones (WAL), 1:04.30
BRONZE – Kirralee Hayes (AUS), 1:04.42

MEN’S S13 100 FREESTYLE – FINAL

• Commonwealth Games Record – Not Established
• 2022 Champion – N/A

GOLD – Nathan Hendricks (RSA), 54.54
SILVER – Stephen Clegg (SCO), 55.16
BRONZE – Matthew Redfern (ENG), 56.86

WOMEN’S 200 BACKSTROKE – FINAL

• World Record – 2:03.14, Kaylee McKeown (AUS), 2023
• Commonwealth Record – 2:03.14, Kaylee McKeown (AUS), 2023
• Commonwealth Games Record – 2:05.60, Kaylee McKeown (AUS), 2022
• 2022 Champion – Kaylee McKeown (AUS), 2:05.60

GOLD – Jenna Forrester (AUS), 2:08.17
SILVER – Katie Shanahan (SCO), 2:08.54
BRONZE – Hannah Fredericks (AUS), 2:09.02

23-year-old Jenna Forrester put on a masterclass en route to winning this women’s 200m backstroke.

The Aussie lurked as the 4th-placed swimmer at the 150m before surging ahead of the pack to ultimately get to the wall first in 2:08.17. She approached even-splitting this race, hitting 1:03.61 on the way out and 1:04.56 on the way home. That was after her 400m freestyle bronze to boot.

She just delivered the fastest time of her career, ripping her former PB of 2:09.13 to shreds to become Australia’s 11th-fastest woman of all time.

Scotland’s national record holder and 2022 European Championships silver medalist in this event Katie Shanahan snagged silver tonight in 2:08.54, holding off top-seeded Aussie Hannah Fredericks. The Scot’s performance beat the 2:09.22 she produced in Birmingham to clinch the bronze four years ago.

23-year-old Fredericks posted 2:09.02 to earn the bronze, well off the lifetime best of 2:07.99 the St. Peters Western athlete logged at this year’s Trials.

20-year-old Iona Anderson, currently ranked 7th in the world in this 2back event, finished in 6th in 2:09.77.

MEN’S 50 BACKSTROKE – SEMI-FINALS

• World Record – 23.55, Kliment Kolesnikov (RUS), 2023
• Commonwealth Record – 24.04, Liam Tancock (GBR), 2009
• Commonwealth Games Record – 24.45, Pieter Coetze (RSA), 2026
• 2022 Champion – Andrew Jeffcoat (NZL), 24.65

Top 8:

WOMEN’S 50 BUTTERFLY – SEMI-FINALS

• World Record – 24.43, Sarah Sjostrom (SWE), 2014
• Commonwealth Record – 25.20, Francesca Halsall (GBR), 2014
• Commonwealth Games Record – 25.20, Francesca Halsall (ENG), 2014
• 2022 Champion – Emma McKeon (AUS), 25.90

Top 8:

MEN’S 100 BREASTSTROKE – SEMI-FINALS

• World Record – 56.88, Adam Peaty (GBR), 2019
• Commonwealth Record – 56.88, Adam Peaty (GBR), 2019
• Commonwealth Games Record – 58.59, Adam Peaty (ENG), 2018
• 2022 Champion – James Wilby (ENG), 59.25

Top 8:

WOMEN’S SM10 200 IM- FINAL

• Commonwealth Games Record – 2:27.72, Sophie Pascoe (NZL), 2018
• 2022 Champion – Jasmine Greenwood (AUS), 2:33.29

GOLD – 
SILVER – 
BRONZE – 

MEN’S S10 100 BUTTERFLY – FINAL

• Commonwealth Games Record – 56.91, Col Pearse (AUS), 2022
• 2022 Champion – Col Pearse (AUS), 56.91

GOLD – 
SILVER – 
BRONZE – 

WOMEN’S 4×00 FREESTYLE RELAY – FINAL

• World Record – 3:27.96, Australia, 2023
• Commonwealth Record – 3:27.96, Australia, 2023
• Commonwealth Games Record – 3:30.05, Australia, 2018
• 2022 Champion – Australia, 3:30.64

GOLD – 
SILVER – 
BRONZE – 

MEN’S 4×00 FREESTYLE RELAY – FINAL

• World Record – 3:08.24, USA, 2008
• Commonwealth Record – 3:08.97, Australia, 2025
• Commonwealth Games Record – 3:11.12, Australia, 2022
• 2022 Champion – Australia, 3:11.12

GOLD – 
SILVER – 
BRONZE –