Team SA started Friday with 23 medals at the 2026 Commonwealth Games and two more were added in Glasgow. The first medal of the day came on the judo mat, with Donne Breytenbach claiming one of the two bronze medals on offer in the -57kg division. Then, Sinesipho Dambile stole the show with a gold medal in the men’s 200m.
ATHLETICS
Men’s 200m, final: Sinesipho Dambile stormed to victory in 19.96sec, a clear winner over second placed Udodi Onwuzurike of Nigeria, who timed 20.09.
Men’s javelin, final: Douw Smit had the bronze medal in his hands until the last when he was thrown out of it. Smit only had one legal throw – a second 82.88m – but it was enough to be in the medals from the second round until the late twist.
PARA ATHLETICS
Women’s T38 long jump, final:: Liezel Gouws finished 7th with a season’s best 4.38m. She also had two jumps of 4.35m in another display of consistency.
NETBALL
Classification Match 5-6: Team SA 62 Uganda 54. Team SA found themselves 17-12 behind after the end of the first quarter. The team-talk break worked Team SA returned with new zest and drew level at 21-21 approaching the middle of the second period and they pulled four shots clear to lead 32-28 at half-time. They further stretched ahead to lead 48-41 after three quarters, with goal shooter Elmere van der Berg clinical. It was more of the same in the final quarter with Team SA doing enough to keep daylight between themselves and their opponents. Van der Berg finished with 48 goals from 49 attempts.
JUDO
Women’s -57kg, quarter-finals: Donne Breytenbach beat her Zambian opponent Sylvia Nawila by Ippon (100-0) after 35 seconds.
Women’s -57kg, semi-finals (C/D): Donne Breytenbach was beaten India’s Yamini Mourya by Ippon (100-0) after 1min 38sec. She would next face Marie Begue of Mauritius in the contest for Bronze Medal Match 1.
BRONZE! Women’s -57kg, Match 1: Donne Breytenbach won with her second Ippon (100-0) of the day when she beat Marie Begue of Mauritius to take Team SA’s 24th medal of the Games.
LAWN BOWLS
Women’s singles, Section C, Round 4: Bridget Herselman lost for the second time when she went down 6-5, 6-3 to Emma Saroji of Malaysia, who remained unbeaten. Herselman is out of contention for a medal.
Men’s Pairs, Section C, Round 4: Team SA (Jason Evans, Paul White) won their third match out of four when they beat Kenya (Chris Kamanga, Anwar Hamada) 5-4, 9-3 to keep their chances of reaching the semi-finals still alive, although Canada remain strong favourites.
PARA LAWN BOWLS
Men’s Pairs, B6-B8, Section A, Round 4: Team SA (Gareth Rees-Gibbs, Jarid James) lost to Australia (Damien Delgado, James Reynolds) on a tie-break. Team SA started well, taking the first set 5-2. However, they never recovered after dropping 4 shots at the first end of the second set and despite fight back well, they conceded it 7-6. The tie-break went 2-0 to the Australians. They are now out of medal contention.
TRACK CYCLING
Keirin qualifying heat, repechages: Mitchell Sparrow finished 5th in his heat, some 1.372sec behind the winner, with the average speed of the race being 74.214km/h. Sparrow progressed to the repechages round. There, he finished 3rd in his race and was eliminated.
Women’s 10km Scratch race, final: S’annara Grove finished 13th, with gold going to Georgina Baker of Australia.
Photo: ANTON GEYSER/TeamSA