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Aussie title spree Thorpe, Thomas swim to more Commonwealth goldsPosted: Sunday August 04, 2002 5:03 PMMANCHESTER (Reuters) -- Ian Thorpe bagged his sixth gold medal and Petria Thomas her fourth and fifth as Australia celebrated a six-title spree on the final night in the Commonwealth Games pool on Sunday. Thorpe anchored the men's 4x100 meters medley relay to victory to become the third swimmer to win six golds at a single Commonwealth Games after Canada's Graham Smith (1978) and fellow Australian Susie O'Neill (1998). He was then whisked away under a police escort to be taken to the closing ceremony where he was carrying the flag for Australia after he became the first man to win an aggregate 10 Commonwealth golds, an achievement matched only by O'Neill. Sharing victory in the medley relay was fellow world champion Matt Welsh, the only man to beat Thorpe when he relegated him to silver in Saturday's 100 meters backstroke. "It's been a fantastic Games, not only for Australia but for all teams. I'm just pleased to have been part of it," Thorpe, who won four golds at the 1998 Games in Kuala Lumpur, said. "It's been a very successful Games for me personally, as well as everybody else." Australia hoisted their swimming title tally to 27 out of a possible 42 but South Africa's Roland Schoeman denied them a sweep on Sunday by snatching victory from Australian Brett Hawke by just 0.01 seconds in the 50 meters freestyle. England were second in the table with 10 golds. Busy Thomas World champion Thomas won the women's 200 meters butterfly and helped Australia to victory in the 4x100 medley relay, having already won gold in the 50 and 100 butterfly and 4x100 freestyle relay, silver in the 4x200 freestyle relay and bronze in the 200 freestyle. Thomas won the 200 butterfly by more than two seconds from England's Georgina Lee and Margaretha Pedder. "I wouldn't quite call it comfortable. It was a pretty tough race. I'm getting tired now," Thomas said. Olympic and world champion Grant Hackett, silver medallist behind Thorpe in the 200 and 400 meters freestyle, won his 1500 meters freestyle speciality by half a length from Scotland's Graeme Smith and fellow Australian Craig Stevens. Jim Piper clung on for gold in the men's 200 meters breaststroke and Jennifer Reilly won the 400 medley event. "I'm stoked to finally get through and get gold at the end of a difficult week," Reilly, a bronze medallist in 1998 when she was 14, said. "It's been a fantastic highlight. I suppose the disqualification in the 200 IM gave me something to think about." In the concluding medley relay, Welsh put Australia in front on the backstroke, England's Adam Whitehead cut back Piper's lead on the breaststroke but Geoff Huegill forged away on the butterfly to give Thorpe a handsome lead. Thorpe brought the Australian quartet home in a Games record three minutes 36.05 seconds, with Matthew Kidd coming through to snatch silver for England in 3:38.37 and Canada taking the bronze in 3:38.91. Close call Schoeman, silver medallist in Thursday's 50 butterfly, won the narrowest of victories in the 50 freestyle, touching in 22.33, with Hawke second in 22.34 and England's Mark Foster third in 22.47 and denied a third successive gold in the event. "That was spectacular," Schoeman said. "Being able to get up and compete against Brett and Mark and race them to the end. It's amazing, we all know each other really well." Foster, who had also had to settle for bronze in the 50 butterfly, was bitterly disappointed. "I was awful. I felt really awful," Foster, competing in his fifth Commonwealth Games at the age of 32, said. "I felt bad all week... I'm bigger, stronger, fitter and more experienced than before and it still wasn't there...I'm just not doing myself justice. Maybe I've been racing too much." Hackett was out on his own in the 1500, winning in 14:54.29 and never threatening the 14:34.56 world record he set at the 2001 world championships in Japan. "I wanted to go 14:55 and once I built up my lead I just wanted to hold on to it from there," Hackett said. "I have the Pan-Pacs [Pan-Pacific championships in two weeks, so I was holding back a bit." Thorpe, meanwhile, has surpassed the previous men's aggregate record of nine Commonwealth golds achieved by English fencer Bill Hoskyns and fellow Australian swimmer Mike Wenden. Thorpe won gold in the 100, 200 and 400 meters freestyle -- the first swimmer to win all three in Commonwealth Games history -- and the 4x100 and 4x200 freestyle relays and 4x100 medley relay.
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