Image source, Team WalesImage caption, Rhys Darbey competed at the Parlympics in Paris in 2024
- Published24 minutes ago
Wales claimed two more Commonwealth Games medals in the pool with Para-swimmer Rhys Darbey and the 4x100m mixed freestyle relay squad winning bronze in Glasgow.
Darbey, the 19-year-old from Deeside, initially finished fourth in the men's S14 200m freestyle final after being edged out by team-mate and room-mate Dylan Broom.
But Broom was agonisingly disqualified for "initiating a start early", which meant Darbey was promoted to third.
Olympic champion Matt Richards won the first Commonwealth Games medal of his career as part of the relay squad alongside Dan Jones, Rebecca Sutton and Theodora Taylor.
Darbey and the relay squad have followed fellow Welsh Para-swimmer Ela Letton-Jones onto the podium after she claimed silver on the opening night, with Team Wales' tally now standing at three.
Relay strategy pays off
With four fourth places in Birmingham in 2022, Richards was competing in his first event in Glasgow and looking for his first Commonwealth medal to complete the set of Olympic, world and European podium positions.
Wales opted for an entirely different quartet in the pool in the final after Kieran Bird, Harry Milne, Medi Harris and Meghan Higgs had qualified fourth fastest in the heats.
Sutton and Taylor had qualified for their respective individual semi-finals in the 100m backstroke and 100m breaststroke, but both pulled out with a full focus on the relay.
The policy paid off and Taylor, 17, brought Wales back from fifth to third with a brilliant final leg.
Earlier, Rose Williams finished fourth in the women's S14 200m freestyle final.
The S14 category covers swimmers who have an intellectual impairment, which typically leads to the athletes having difficulties with regard to pattern recognition, sequencing, and memory, or having a slower reaction time, which impact on sport performance in general.
Tyler Melbourne-Smith finished sixth in the 400m freestyle final, while Lewis Fraser qualified for the 100m butterfly final to be staged on Sunday evening.
