Commonwealth Games: Wales win 18th medal despite Geraint Thomas crash

Hosts: Birmingham Dates: 28 July to 8 August Coverage: Watch live on BBC TV with extra streams on BBC iPlayer, Red Button, BBC Sport website and BBC Sport mobile app; Listen on BBC Radio 5 Live and Sports Extra; live text and clips online.

Geraint Thomas’ hopes of Commonwealth Games men’s time trial gold disappeared after crashing during the early stages of his ride.

Thomas came off in the opening stages of his ride after his back wheel slid out on a corner and he caught the barrier.

He managed bronze behind Australian Rohan Dennis and Fred Wright.

It was Wales’ 18th medal of the Commonwealth Games with four gold, four silver and 10 bronze.

The crash was a bitter blow for Thomas, who had arrived at the Games in fine form after finishing third in the Tour de France.

The time trial was considered his main hope of victory, ahead of Sunday’s road race.

After his early crash on the 37km course, Thomas lost 30 seconds on the first checkpoint to Dennis and appeared to be contemplating a bike change.

The 2018 Tour de France champion battled manfully but missed out on second place and will wonder what might have been as he finished 28 seconds behind the winner.

Thomas, 36, claimed gold in the Commonwealth Games road race in Glasgow in 2014 but there was drama in that race when he suffered a late puncture before winning.

This was a second time trial Commonwealth Games bronze medal after his efforts in Scotland eight years ago.

Owain Doull was seventh, while Elynor Backstedt-Calvert, Leah Dixon and Anna Morris finished eighth, 15th and 16th respectively in the women’s time trial.

More medals pending

There will be at least four more medals for Wales with boxing identical twins Ioan and Garan Croft joining Rosie Eccles and Taylor Bevan in Saturday’s semi-finals.

Welterweight Ioan Croft secured his place with the second-round stoppage of Malawi’s Luwis Zakeyu Mbewe.

Light-middleweight Garan Croft beat Mauritius’ Merven Clair by unanimous decision.

There are also two more medal hopes in the evening session with Jake Dodd and Owain Harris-Allan fighting in quarter-final bouts.

In athletics, Olympic finalist Jake Heyward is through to Saturday’s 1,500m final after finishing third in his heat, but Piers Copeland misses out after finishing seventh in his heat, which was won by new world champion Jake Weightman.

Amber Simpson qualified fifth for the women’s hammer final, while 200m runner Hannah Brier eased through to the semi-finals.

Wales’ netballers finished the pool campaign with a 60-44 win over Barbados.

Wales hockey women lost 5-0 to England in the final group game and finished fourth in Pool A. They will face South Africa in the seventh-place match on Friday.

The men’s hockey side lost the final pool match to India 4-1.

Lucy Hawkins has qualified for Thursday night’s women’s 10m platform final after finishing ninth in the preliminaries.