England's multiple Olympic champion and world record-holder Adam Peaty, in his comeback final after breaking his foot, is on for gold as he turns for home - and off the podium by the time he touches home.

Meanwhile his team-mate James Wilby reacts disbelievingly to an unexpected victory,

South Africa's London 2012 champion and 10-times world champion Chad Le Clos is disappointed to miss adding an eighth Commonwealth gold to his collection - "I'm gutted not to have won, I’ll be honest."

But silver in the men's 200 metres butterfly brings his total of Commonwealth medals to 18 - thus equalling the mark set by shooters Mick Gault of England and Phil Adams of Australia.

Meanwhile double Olympic champion Emma McKeon has made her own bit of history as victory in the women's 200m freestyle earns her an 11^th Commonwealth Games gold - making her the most decorated Australian swimmer at the Games.

There is also an Australian world record of 7min 39.29sec in the women's 4x200m freestyle relay.

And that's not all.

Huge roars from the home crowd announce the efforts of England's Alice Tai, in lane one, as she comes from behind to overhaul New Zealand's Paralympic champion Tupou Neiufi to earn gold in the women's 100m backstroke S8 final.

Just six months earlier Tai had had her right leg amputated below the knee because of increasing pain in the clubfoot with which she was born.

"I started last season with surgery," she says in the wake of her win. "I had to pull out of Tokyo [2020 Paralympic Games] and had an amputation in January.

"I've been learning to walk this year and then getting back in the pool was a just a bit of fun - I missed swimming.

"I can't even believe that I'm in Team England. There was a time when me and my coaches were like, 'It's not even worth trying as I’m not gonna make it.'

"It’s a bit surreal."

It was marvellous for Tai. But it was a pretty damn good too for the silver medallist given that her preparations had been undermined at a crucial point by a COVID-19 infection.

Neiufi was run over by a car when she was two-and-a-half and left for dead - indeed, her parents, for a while, believed she was dead. She had to be taught how to sit, walk and use her arms again.

"I remember absolutely nothing about my accident," she says in a new short documentary directed by New Zealand TVNZ journalist Gill Higgins entitled Beneath the Surface - a film with echoes of American Beauty in its haunting shots and soundtrack.

"I was the victim of a hit-and-run - car didn’t stop, they just kept going. And they never found the driver.

"I was transported to the hospital but my parents thought I had already passed away. I did flatline for a bit until they revived me.

"It left me with a traumatic brain injury and left side is smaller and weaker than my right side.

"But in the pool my left and right side feel the same. So it basically makes me feel normal.

"For a lot of Polynesian cultures having a disability is a bad thing, it's like karma on the family. And that’s why a lot of families tend to just leave their kids at home.

"I’m just lucky with my family that my parents were able to see through that."

Aged 15, Neiufi made her international debut at the Rio 2016 Paralympics, finishing seventh. But her fortunes dipped rather than rose from there.

"They definitely were my darkest times," she recalls. "At the 2018 Commonwealth Games I didn't get the medal that I wanted, which was a huge blow.

"I was locking myself in my room, on my phone all the time, I almost cried myself to sleep every night thinking that I wasn’t good enough.

"I just wanted to drown myself in training so that I didn't have to think about anything else. Then it kind of - paid off…"

At the 2019 World Championships she won a silver medal. Two years later, at the postponed Tokyo 2020 Paralympics, silver turned into gold - New Zealand's first of the Games.

"It made me just totally feel like it was just totally worth it," Neiufi says.

But there were more trying times ahead of her, as the documentary, which started four months before her swim in Birmingham, makes clear.

"There’s been lots of ups and downs this year - mostly downs so far," she says at the start of the film. "I definitely feel tons of pressure. I wake up at 4:30am most mornings. I 100 per cent believe most athletes have thought about throwing in the towel. For me it happens every couple of months!

"I’d love to get another gold medal but it’s all about the training. If it’s not me it’s going to be someone else. Just very fired up. I want that gold."

A month later that golden ambition has been tarnished by COVID.

"The timing has been absolutely terrible," Neiufi reflects. "It’s been hard for me to get out of bed. Cough's been pretty bad. I literally can’t do anything. I can’t go out and train."

Sheldon Kemp, who has coached her since she was 11, adds: "So with long COVID physicians are trying to predict what it looks like. But again with Tupou’s disability, with the fatigue factor, we don’t know how she responds. With 50 days to go it’s a little nerve-wracking."

Two weeks before her big race the strain is telling on her.

"I'm going through a bit of a mentally tough time," she says. "With so much pressure I just sometimes feel it's too much.

"I’ve never been this anxious before a race ever before. Standing on the scales I’ve gained more than I should have. Just really threw my head around a lot. I have just so much doubt in myself."

With her family back home in South Auckland watching on TV, Neiufi turns for home in first position…

"On the second lap coming back I had so much self-doubt," she reflects. "I felt like the tank was just so empty.

"So when I touched the wall and saw that I was second I was just super-relieved that, you know, it was me!

"Sport is definitely a very powerful thing. It makes you feel like you are on top of the world."