Golden Touch at Last for Macey

England's Dean Macey overcame yet more injury problems to win decathlon gold in Melbourne.

Macey went into the final event, the dreaded 1500m, 37 points behind Australian Jason Dudley after taking just one throw in the javelin due to an arm injury.

That meant he needed to beat Dudley by around five seconds to take gold, and he easily achieved that to win his first major championship.

Jamaica's Maurice Smith finished second in the 1500m to snatch silver overall, with Dudley forced to settle for bronze. Macey had led for much of the two-day competition but tweaked his hamstring in the 110m hurdles this morning and was then overtaken after Dudley threw a new personal best of 69.27m in the javelin.

However, the world championship silver medallist's personal best over 1500m was almost 40 seconds quicker than Dudley's and the result was never in serious doubt.

It was England's second gold medal of the night on the track after Lisa Dobriskey claimed a surprise victory in the women's 1500m.

Watched by Olympic double gold medallist Kelly Holmes, the 22-year-old produced a superb sprint finish over the final 100m to beat Australia's Sarah Jamieson into second.

Wales' Hayley Tullett took the bronze with England's Helen Clitheroe, who had led from halfway, unfortunate to miss out on a medal in fourth.

There was also a bronze for England's Nadia Williams in the women's triple jump. She set a new personal best of 13.42m in finishing third behind Jamaica's Trecia Smith and Nigeria's Otonye Iworima.

Chris Baillie had earlier claimed Scotland's first track medal of the Commonwealth Games in a thrilling finish to the 110 metres hurdles.

In a race won convincingly by Jamaica's Maurice Wignall, Baillie took silver by 1/100th of a second from England's Andrew Turner.

The pair were so close as they crossed the line that it took the photo-finish judges several minutes to separate them. Baillie clocked 13.61 seconds with Turner given 13.62. England's David Hughes finished seventh.

It was an emotional occasion for Baillie, whose older brother Ross was a hugely promising hurdler when he died aged 21 from an allergic reaction to peanuts which were in a chicken sandwich eaten during a break in training back in 1999.

Baillie, 24, who broke his brother's Scottish record with a new personal best of 13.44 in the heats, added: "It was amazing. It's the one thing you dream of.

"You want to come here and do your best and your best has to mean looking for medals. To get the silver is a great achievement. I felt I could get into the medals but it was always going to be tight."

Kelly Sotherton will not compete in the long jump, thereby avoiding direct competition with England team-mate Jade Johnson.

Sotherton, who began her quest for heptathlon gold this morning, had hoped to also tackle the long jump in Melbourne.

But qualification for the long jump takes place tomorrow, in the middle of the second day of competition in the heptathlon.
That means that Sotherton will not be going head-to-head with Johnson, who fell out with her at the AAA Championships claiming Sotherton "lacks respect" for her rivals.

"I would have loved to do the long jump," said Sotherton, before the athletics programme got underway. "That would have been amazing. I think there was an outside chance of a medal in the long jump."