As Amy Hunt paraded through the interview room, a beaming smile and the English flag draped over her drenched shoulders, she wiggled her fingers to flash her silver rings.
‘I need to start wearing gold jewellery,’ she laughed, having just finished second in the 100 metres final. There was no shame whatsoever in her silver medal, but Hunt has always been one of life’s over achievers.
‘If anyone wants to buy some gold rings for me, that would be amazing!’ added the Cambridge University graduate.
She lost three of her acrylic nails on the starting blocks. The conditions in Glasgow were filthy, splashing and dashing through torrential rain to finish in a time of 10.98 seconds.
‘It was pretty gross on the start line,’ she said. ‘My fingers were underwater but you just have to roll with the punches at champs.’
Throughout the evening, stadium staff pushed giant squeegee machines over the surface to soak up the water. They absorb 60 litres per minute but nothing could prevent the track from turning into a 100m slip and slide.
Amy Hunt sprinted to silver in the women’s 100m final at the Commonwealth Games
New Zealand’s Zoe Hobbs made a fast start to the final and held off Hunt to claim the gold
Hunt, seen congratulating Hobbs, has view this all as part of her long-term project building towards the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games
Billy Connolly was born 15 minutes away this stadium, which is usually occupied by the Glasgow Warriors rugby team. As the city’s windswept comedian once said: ‘There are two seasons in Scotland: June and winter.’
Outside of Scotstoun, volunteers were determined not to be brought down by the washout. ‘No Scotland, no party,’ they chanted. In the uncovered stand behind the finish line, most of the party had left for shelter by the time Hunt crossed the line.
For Hunt, you suspect this is all part of a long-term project to put her in medal contention for the 200m at the 2028 Olympics. The 24-year-old has been working hard to improve her start – and it was her top-end speed pulled her back into the medal positions. So far in 2026, Hunt has set personal bests over 50, 60 and 100 metres. It will all help improve her chances the warmer climates of Los Angeles.
Here, however, it Zoe Hobbs of New Zealand won gold, surprising the field from Lane 7.
‘I had a really terrible first 60 metres,’ said Hunt. ‘So I think it just shows the calibre of my top end speed that I could dig myself out of the horrendous ditch that I dug in the first half of the race.
‘It was the first 10 for me. I’m a legitimate starter. I can get it right, and today I got it really badly wrong. My top end speed is so formidable that I was able to claw back that silver but I think gold was definitely there for the taking. I beat Zoe in the semis – and she’s an incredible athlete. She ran a PB to win, but I think gold was definitely there.’
Heather Oakes was the last woman to win 100m gold for England in the Commonwealths. That was back in 1986, when 32 nations boycotted the competition because Margaret Thatcher refused to impose sanctions on South Africa’s apartheid government. The wait goes on.
Many of the world’s fastest women stayed away from Glasgow this week. Olympic champion Julien Alfred, of St Lucia, was among the absentees, along with the British Virgin Islands’ Adaejah Hodge, who has clocked the fastest time in the world this year. You suspect they were not full of regret when they turned on their TV sets to see athletes huddled under umbrellas. The high jump was delayed for almost two hours.
Englishman Elliot Jones raced earlier in the evening, losing out in his 100m semi-final. The 28-year-old needed to wring out his running spikes as he headed back into the changing room. ‘There was water all over the lane,’ said Jones, who watched Cameroonian Emmanuel Eseme win the final with a Games record time of 9.83s.
‘It felt like I couldn’t get any traction. I didn’t feel like I was moving anywhere. It’s frustrating, but everyone’s got the same conditions. I got in the blocks and I was pushing water out my lanes. In between the false start and the start, the water had repoured. It’s a Scottish summer, isn’t it?’
This was a summer headline that Hunt was not prepared to miss out on. Her parents travelled up from Newark to watch, booking an Airbnb with her coach. Only the Commonwealths? Tell that to her mentor, the double gold medallist Darren Campbell.
‘I think it’s really, really important as a track athlete,’ said Hunt, who won 200m silver in the World Championships in Tokyo last September. ‘We don’t get much representation in terms of media. We’re not NBA players. We’re not on TV three times a week, when everyone’s seeing our faces.
‘It’s really, really important in terms of my journey as an athlete, my legacy is an athlete. I don’t want to go on my Wikipedia page in 30 years’ time and just see one or two medals. I want to see lists and lists of medals. This is my first Commonwealth Games, so it was really good to come here.’
And the Glaswegian storm clouds, at least, had a silver lining.
