Australia dominated in the pool on day two, but one gold medal was extra special

Scroll down to see the complete medal tally after day two of the Commonwealth Games.Glasgow: A crook back. Dodgy food. Not being able to eat mum’s home-cooked meals while on a staging camp in Germany.Australia’s all-conquering swimming team continued its Commonwealth Games blitz on Saturday night, overcoming varying degrees of adversity to further cement its status as the standout nation in Glasgow with five more gold medals in the pool.Gold medallist Sam Short (centre), silver medallist Elijah Winnington and bronze medallist Benjamin Goedemans.Getty ImagesMollie O’Callaghan claimed gold in the women’s 200m freestyle despite admitting she was “in my head” as she managed a back injury, describing the victory as one of the lows of her career by her extraordinarily high standards.Distance king Sam Short wished he had a young and hungry Ian Thorpe swimming next to him after he won the 400m but fell short of the world record he has spent years chasing and obsessing over.Alex Perkins added gold in the 50m butterfly for the first individual international title of her career before Australia capped another dominant evening by winning the mixed 4x100m freestyle relay through Flynn Southam, Kyle Chalmers, Shayna Jack and Meg Harris.Australia’s Sam Williamson after taking out the men’s 100m breaststroke. AP Photo/Manish SwarupBut the story of the night was Sam Williamson, for whom any of those maladies listed above would have been an improvement.The Victorian breaststroker saved the best individual performance of night two for last after a year from hell in which he wondered he would ever swim again, let alone try and enter a fair dinkum race.Williamson would have swapped a night of vomiting over the toilet, as Elijah Winnington endured before his silver medal in the 400m freestyle, for his torturous rehab from a ruptured patellar tendon last year in a freak gym accident that left him fighting back tears of pain and frustration whenever he couldn’t get out his own bed to get to the toilet.After learning how to walk and then swim again, it was quite the sight to see Williamson (59.17) motor past England’s Adam Ramsay-Peaty (59.65) in the 100m breaststroke, a two-time Olympic gold medallist in the event, to stun the local crowd and cap one of the feelgood stories of the Games.Sam Williamson after his victory on Saturday evening. Getty ImagesWilliamson previously revealed he saw “my knee halfway up my thigh” after a routine box jump went horribly wrong. Simply returning to elite swimming required extraordinary mental resilience. Producing a swim good enough to beat Ramsay-Peaty was another level again as the Englishman settled for bronze.“Mentally it was the toughest challenge I’ve ever had to face,” Williamson said. “Every single day I wanted to throw in the towel, and every single day I wanted to give up. But I knew how far I’d come to get to that point. I knew if I threw in the towel, everything until then wasn’t worth it.“In that last 10 metres, I had every single person behind me back home cheering me on, and they were the ones that got me on the wall.”He added on Seven: “To come away with a medal is incredible but to come away with the gold medal, it’s just a dream come true, and it just goes to prove if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.”Ramsay-Peaty was emotional after coming away with third.“I’m not crying because it’s a bronze instead of a gold,” he told reporters after the race. “I’m crying because I know that swim could have been better.“What’s the point of all the 5.30ams? What’s the point of feeling exhausted all the time? What’s the point of saying no to all the family events because of training? That isn’t excellence for me. I enjoy a scrap, but I lost that scrap in the last 25 metres.”It was always expected Australia would dominate these Commonwealth Games and it is raining medals in Scotland. But after collecting 20 medals across the opening two nights, the Dolphins have exceeded even their own lofty expectations.O’Callaghan fights through injuryOne of the bravest performances belonged to O’Callaghan, who said she had no regrets about revealing 11 days ago that stress fractures in her back left her in danger of missing both the Commonwealth Games and next month’s Pan Pacific Championships in California.She told coaches her body wouldn’t be able to cope with the rigours of backing up for the mixed 4x100m freestyle relay later in the night, so put all her eggs in the 200m freestyle basket in an event where she is the reigning Olympic and world champion.Her winning time of 1:54.66 was well outside her personal best of 1:52.48 but, given the circumstances, O’Callaghan was both relieved and frustrated after edging teammate Lani Pallister (1:55.01).“I’m always a tough critic … and I always want a bit of a better time,” O’Callaghan said.“I think I’m so in my head at the moment. The injury and dealing with that is not the best thing … but as an athlete you’ve got to find ways to adapt.“There’s always moments where you’re like, ‘Can I do this? Can I not do this?’ To get here and to push the boundaries and to push the limits, it’s definitely a battle.“In sport it’s meant to be a bit bumpy. The lows make the highs even better. It’s definitely probably one of my lows. But honestly, it’s such a high to just be there.”As for the decision not to keep her injury a secret?“It was easier to put it out there instead of just dropping this massive bomb during racing or smoke-bombing a relay,” she said. “In a way I just thought it might be easier to not surprise everyone.”O’Callaghan’s decision to withdraw from the mixed relay means she now needs to win the 100m freestyle, 50m backstroke, 4x200m freestyle relay and 4x100m medley relay to break the Commonwealth Games record of seven gold medals won by a swimmer at a single Games.But with her back injury still requiring careful management, Australia are unlikely to take unnecessary risks.Short also collected gold in the men’s 400m freestyle but, with nobody able to stay with him, again fell short of Lukas Martens’ world record of 3:39.96 after swimming a personal best 3:40.67 at last month’s Australian trials.His winning time of 3:41.25 was the third fastest of his career – an outstanding swim by almost any measure – but the Queenslander has made no secret of his ambition to become the fastest man in history. Being on the road isn’t quite like the comforts of home.“I would love to have the world record and [beat] Thorpey’s time but I have a lot more opportunities to do it,” Short said.“You come here after travelling and it can be a spanner in the works. It’s not just as easy as staying home and eating my mum’s food at trials. I’m happy as, though.”From food poisoning to silverMeanwhile, Winnington (3:45.56) had to make a crucial decision at 2.30 on Saturday morning. The 26-year-old was hunched over a toilet bowel in a Glasgow hotel, suffering from suspected food poisoning.He sent a text to his coach Dean Boxall, then second-guessed himself and deleted it.“As I was going to bed last night I felt a bit queasy, and then I was pretty much up most of last night over the toilet bowl,” Winnington said.Winnington was adamant he “didn’t want to give up” and after discussions with Boxall, agreed to race. He’s glad he did.“I wanted to fight and I’m glad,” he said.From our partners