Fiji's Taniela Rainibogi snatched the spotlight on Day 7 of the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games, breaking a Games record that had stood for all of minutes in the men's 110kg weightlifting final.

England's Cyrille Tchatchet II had just set the benchmark with a snatch (the first of two competition lifts in weightlifting, where the bar goes from floor to overhead in one motion) of 166kg — a Games record. Rainibogi then walked to the platform and lifted 170kg to surpass him The Guardian.

Thursday's programme spread 17 gold medals across weightlifting, track cycling and athletics, plus netball and bowls — the richest single day of the Games so far Glasgow 2026. Seven of those golds came on the boards of the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome, where the first finals of the cycling programme took place after days of qualifying rounds BBC Sport.

Australia, who top the all-time Commonwealth Games cycling medal table across all disciplines, entered the women's 4000m team pursuit as defending champions. Five teams — Kenya, Wales, England, Australia and New Zealand — posted qualifying times, with the two fastest advancing to the gold-medal final. In the men's equivalent, England clocked 3:50.892, faster than both Wales and Scotland The Guardian.

In the women's tandem B sprint — a para-cycling event where a visually impaired rider races paired with a sighted pilot — Olympic champion Elizabeth Jordan, with pilot Sylvia Misztal, topped qualifying in 10.87 seconds. Six pairs competed; the four fastest advanced to the semi-finals The Guardian.

Out on the netball court, Uganda led Scotland 36-22 at halftime in a pool match where the winner would advance to the 5th-6th playoff. The session had opened earlier in the morning with Malawi against Tonga BBC Sport.

For all the medal drama, one of the day's most affecting stories belonged to an athlete chasing no gold at all. Ngake, a sprinter who competed for Cameroon at the London 2012 Olympics, fled the athletes' village after finishing sixth in her event. A teammate had discovered she was a lesbian, and homosexuality is illegal in Cameroon. She slept rough for a month The Guardian.

Ngake gave up elite sport for more than a decade. She returned to competition in 2023 and transferred her sporting allegiance to Britain in 2024. Now she lines up in Glasgow wearing different colours, the road from that London night finally reaching a stadium again.

Swimming and para swimming events concluded on Day 7, closing out the pool programme and narrowing the Games' focus to the track, the velodrome and the field Glasgow 2026.