Boxers, cyclists lead Aussie gold charge

A trio of Australian boxers have joined the host nation's gold medal charge on Saturday at the Commonwealth Games.

boxing

Skye Nicolson had an emotional victory in the Women's 57kg boxing final at the Commonwealth Games. (AAP)

A boxer patched together with a corpse's tendon and another honouring dead siblings have joined Australia's golden surge at the Commonwealth Games.

Boxers Anja Stridsman, on a re-built knee, and Skye Nicolson, whose brothers were killed in a car crash, were among 10 Australian gold medal winners on Saturday.

Australia's women's basketballers grabbed gold with a 99-55 romp against England.

The Hockeyroos savoured another success with a 2-0 win against New Zealand - they have now won all six golds offered at Commonwealth Games.

Road race cyclists Steele von Hoff and Chloe Hosking, 10m platform diver Domonic Bedggood, another boxer Harry Garside, mixed doubles squash pairing Donna Urquhart and Cameron Pilley, and para table tennis player Melissa Tapper also added to Australia's gold medal collection.

Australia enter Sunday's final day of the Gold Coast Games with 75 gold, 54 silver and 57 bronze medals - well-clear of next-best England (42 golds) and India (25 golds).

Australia's netballers claimed a semi-final 65-44 victory against New Zealand to set-up a gold medal battle against England on Sunday.

But the nation's women's hockey team were trumped by the Kiwis, losing 3-1 in Saturday's gold medal game, and the men's rugby sevens team was knocked out of medal contention when losing to England.

Our men's basketballers brushed aside Scotland 103-46 in a semi-final and will meet Canada in Sunday's gold medal fixture.

At the boxing ring, Stridsman (women's 60kg) and Nicolson (women's 57kg) scored emotional victories.

Nicolson's brother Jamie won featherweight bronze at the 1990 Auckland Games but died in a car crash with another brother before she was born.

"I had a little chat to them right before I went in and they were definitely there with me," Nicolson said after a controversial split decision over Northern Ireland's Michaela Walsh, who believed she was robbed.

"Some of the decisions have been really bad lately, for Australia. I don't know how they can get away with it," Walsh said.

Stridsman's triumph capped a remarkable comeback: she tore an anterior cruciate ligament in a knee last September but carried the injury through three fights at selection trials in November.

After securing a Games berth, Stridsman had surgery and the damaged ligament was replaced with an Achilles tendon taken from a corpse.

"I have proved now that you can really do it, even if everyone else thinks that you can't," she said.

At the athletics stadium, Tasmanian Hamish Peacock snared men's javelin silver and teammate Nicola McDermott took women's high jump bronze.

Australia's men's 4x100 relay team faded to fourth while the women's 4x100 team literally fell flat when Melissa Breen inexplicably stumbled at the last baton change and crashed to the track.

Local road cyclists Hosking and von Hoff had no such problems, winning their respective women's and men's races.

Hosking's five Australian teammates plotted the downfall of her rivals as team tactics delivered gold to the 27-year-old.

"Six women went into winning this race ... I'm going to get all the girls' names engraved on the medal," Hosking said.

Meanwhile, Tapper secured Australia's first table tennis gold medal at a Commonwealth Games in the para TT6-10 singles category.

And dual Commonwealth gold-medallist David Palmer and teammate Zac Alexander booked a berth in Sunday's men's squash doubles gold medal match.


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Source: AAP


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