{"id":542612,"date":"2026-07-24T22:21:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T22:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/542612\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T22:21:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T22:21:10","slug":"new-zealand-claims-first-medals-of-2026-commonwealth-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/542612\/","title":{"rendered":"New Zealand claims first medals of 2026 Commonwealth Games"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Zealand has won its first medals of the 2026 Commonwealth Games<\/a> in Glasgow, with Kiwi swimmers Erika Fairweather and Lewis Clareburt both claiming silver in the first finals session in the pool.<\/p>\n

Fairweather, one of a trio of Kiwi women to qualify for the 400m freestyle final, finished second behind Australia’s Lani Pallister, who won the race comfortably in a time of 3m 59.56s.<\/p>\n

A fast-finishing Clareburt finished second in a gripping men’s 200m individual medley final, with Scotland’s Duncan Scott claiming gold to whip up the hometown crowd.<\/p>\n

It was Clareburt’s fifth Commonwealth Games medal and first silver, having won two golds and a bronze in Birmingham and a bronze on the Gold Coast in 2018.<\/p>\n

\"Erika<\/p>\n

Erika Fairweather of New Zealand during in the Women\u2019s 400m Freestyle heats at the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games (Source: Photosport)<\/p>\n

Scott, defending his title from four years ago in Birmingham, won in a Commonwealth Games record time of 1m 56.38s, just pipping Clareburt who came home strong after being third at the turn into the freestyle leg.<\/p>\n

England’s Tom Dean won bronze in 1m 57.22s.<\/p>\n

The women’s 400m final was more of a straightforward affair, with Pallister going out strong and setting a brisk pace early. Fairweather clung with her for the first 300m of the race, but dropped away over the final stages as her Australian rival kicked home.<\/p>\n

It was Fairweather’s first Commonwealth Games medal, having narrowly missed the podium in Birmingham after battling illness in the lead-up to the event.<\/p>\n

New Zealand’s Caitlin Deans finished sixth in the final, while Eve Thomas came home in eighth.<\/p>\n

rnz.co.nz<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Zealand has won its first medals of the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, with Kiwi swimmers Erika…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[166477,111,139,69,213,17933,1745],"class_list":["post-542612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-commonwealth-games","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports","tag-swimming","tag-uk-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}