Lauren Boyle wins Commonwealth Games gold - Stuff.co.nz
by IAN ANDERSON

ROBERT KITCHIN/ Fairfax NZ
The last thing Lauren Boyle had to do before bed - after putting her gold medal in a safe place - was set the alarm for a little after 5am.
The Commonwealth Games gold medallist had a morning training session to attend, less than 12 hours after winning the women's 400 metres freestyle final at the Tollcross pool in Glasgow.
"I'm coming in for training at 6:15 tomorrow morning," she told assembled media soon after her medal ceremony.
"It's not a joke - I was kind of shocked myself."
Boyle and the rest of the New Zealand team were due to train for a couple of days in Glasgow, now that the six-day swim competition was over, before heading home to prepare for next month's Pan Pacific champs in Australia.
The 26-year-old collected silver the previous night in the 800m freestyle final when beaten by Jazz Carlin of Wales, but Boyle turned the tables this morning in a superbly-executed race. She took the lead at the halfway stage and won in a time of 4:04.47s.
Carlin finished 0.69 seconds behind and Australia's Bronte Barratt was third in 4:06.02.
"I wanted to make sure that I had a pretty strong first half of the race," Boyle said.
"But I knew I had to have something left to fight, because ... you know, I kinda got kicked in the arse in the last 100 [metres of the 800 final]."
Boyle was worried about the stiff task of backing up in such a strenuous programme, but was surprised with how her body coped.
"I didn't actually feel too bad tonight - I think maybe I was expecting it to be a little worse than it was.
"It was a pretty hard double - eight and a half minutes of full-bore racing last night and then heats this morning and finals tonight. I haven't done that for a few years."
Click here to read more on stuff.co.nz
DOYSF proudly supported by The Westy Trust
