Athletics: Hives lifted by triple bronze

GARETH HIVES, the Welsh weightlifter who was banned for life four years ago after testing positive for steroids, yesterday won three bronze medals in the 108kg category.

The 28-year-old, who appealed to be reinstated when the original ban was reduced to four years to fall into line with international Olympic committee guidelines last February, was stripped of the four silver medals he won at the last Comonwealth Games because of his offence.

But yesterday he comfortably finished third in the snatch, and took the clean and jerk bronze from Marc Marais on lower body weight, which was enough to give him the combined bronze medal ahead of the South African. On Friday night England's Andrew Callard won a third weight-

lifting gold medal in the combined section of the 99kg category, when he had a clean lift on his final attempt at 197.5kg.

On the badminton court, the mixed doubles final was won by Chris Hunt and Gill Clark, who showed enormous resilience in beating Julie Bradbury and Simon Archer 15-11 15-4, bringing Clark her 11th Commonwealth Games medal in a long and distinguished career. Rashid Sidek retained his men's singles title with a 15-6 15-4 win over his compatriot, Ewe Hock Ong.

Scotland won gold on the bowling green when Sarah Gourlay, 56, won the women's pairs competing with Frances Whyte.