Glasgow 2026 | Men’s Artistic Day One
The men’s team narrowly missed out on a team medal in the first day of the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games, but two members qualified for individual finals.
The home crowd roaring, team strength on show and pure determination of Team Scotland’s men’s artistic gymnasts produced thrilling performances across the board. Debutant Reuben Ward secures himself a place in four of the seven finals on offer; all-around, floor, pommel horse and parallel bars. Captain Cameron Lynn will join him in the all-around and pommel finals. He will also by flying high in the horizontal bar final next week.
Pride and passion
Cameron stepped onto the floor square first, going clean and hyping the crowd. He opened with two huge E-valued passes – double pike front and backward double, double, tuck. Quickly settling into his routine, Reuben showed impressive non-tumbling elements, clearly brought over from his specialty piece – pommel. Qualifying him in sixth to the final. The most experienced gymnast on the team, Hamish Carter, stuck the first pass but overpowered on the dismount, causing a bounce out of bounds. But he was pleased with his opening performance. Connor Sullivan, one of the youngsters of the team, stepped up moments later to make his Commonwealth Games debut. Adrenaline caused an out of bounds on his first pass, but he soon got into the flow and showed the crowd exactly why this is his best piece.
Cameron put his hand up first again as the team moved over to pommel; the very piece he not only debuted but also opened for the team at Birmingham 2022. Steady pace with minor deductions gave him a score of 13 on the dot – the same score he received at this year’s Scottish National Artistic Championships. Hamish had coaches Marius and Jake in the air with pride as he stuck his dismount. Like Cameron, Hamish also debuted on this piece back at Gold Coast 2018.
Scottish and British pommel champion Reuben showed us exactly why he holds the titles. The young gymnast placing himself smoothly to the top of the qualification table with 14.55. The routine had personal coach Jake visibly going through all emotions from nervous hands-on-head to excitement, leaping into the air as Reuben stuck the dismount. Then came a short but sweet routine from Connor. Hesitation on the handstand for dismounting but made it through.
Minor Errors
The pace slowed in the team at the rings as some errors on landings hurt three out of the four routines put out. Hamish kept it steady until an unfortunate stumble with a full mark deduction on the landing of his double, double tuck dismount. Hesitation in the handstands between skills looked like Reuben was about to follow suit, but he found his feet, sticking the dismount and gaining the 0.1 landing bonus. Taking to his first piece in his home city Games was Pavel Karnejenko. He performed a roll Maltese cross (horizontal, pictured right) into a kip Maltese cross (vertical) with ease, placing him third reserve overall. The bigger the skill, the bigger the risk, for error showed as Cameron slightly over rotated his triple back tuck somersault dismount to miss his feet – a huge skill valued a G giving 0.7 to the difficulty score.
At the halfway point Scotland sat fifth behind Canada, Australia, Cyprus and England. Hamish opened the apparatus with a safe, clean kaz full twist giving a 4.4 start value. Only Connor performed two vaults, which is required if aiming to make the final of this apparatus. His first vault, a kaz one-and-a-half twist, did not gain enough height, causing an uncharacteristic fall. However, he brought it back with a solid handspring double front tuck. He is the third reserve spot for the vault final. Confidence returned to the team as Cameron stuck a kasamatsu straight with 3/2 twist and Reuben puts a kaz double twist over the table.
Words of Encouragement
As they warmed up for parallel bars, announcer Danusia Frances caught up with Team Scotland’s women’s artistic team in the crowd. Lottie Smith reflected on the build-up to the Games and cheered them on saying: “It’s been super inspiring to train with the boys. Keep it going lads.” Ellee Cheetham followed up with: “We can’t wait to show Scotland what we’re made of” when asked about how she feels for their turn to compete tomorrow.
Over to parallel bars, the penultimate piece. Reuben went in with a difficulty score of 4.8 featuring a tough double front tuck somersault half dismount, qualifying him to the final in seventh. Here Pavel returned to the podium by performing a healy turn into an undersomi to handstand impressing the crowd. A single large step back on his double pike dismount, but he proudly remained on his feet. A technically-packed routine went clean for Hamish with solid single-bar work which placed him third reserve. Cameron’s undersomi to handstand into the long swing settled him into the routine to also go clean.
The Lion’s Roar
A serious fall from England’s first gymnast up on high bar paused the competition, sending the arena into silence. Emotions were channelled into energy as Scotland got the crowd roaring and out of their seats with their routines. Cameron put out a 5.3 difficulty routine, with skills that always wow the crowd – a single arm giant and a full twisting catch and release. Both Cameron and Hamish had the crowd going wild as they wound up into their dismounts and perfectly stuck them. Reuben went clean performing a liukin (a stalder element with a flight phase over the bar), valued as a G. He then upped the stakes as he gained a 0.1 connection bonus for his straddle tkatchev and giener releases. Connor concluded the team and overall competition also performing a G valued skill – a cassina (a laid-out double backflip with a full twist).
The session ended with devastation for Scotland, finishing fourth with 234.300, missing out on the podium by 1.35 as the bronze medal went to Australia. A place improvement from Birmingham 2022 where the Scots finished fifth but a bittersweet result for a home Games. England’s title reign was taken by Canda as they finished with 238.250 and 241.400 respectively.
Speaking to us in the mixed zone, Cameron said:
“We gave it absolutley everything tonight and couldn’t have asked for anymore than that. That’s performance sport but I’m just so proud of the team.”
On how his home city Games experience felt compared to Birmingham 2022, Pavel commented: “It was special. It was a different experience and I think that’s why everyones a little more emotional. Because it meant so much to us being in front of a home crowd.”
Individual Results
In the all-around competition, Reuben qualified in third to Sunday’s men’s all-around final (79.650), with Cameron in ninth (77.450). Due to the two per nation rule, tenth-placed Hamish is set to miss out on the final, despite his 76.500 score. Reuben also qualified to the pommel final in first place. He drew with Canada’s Jordan Carrol – which is set to be an interesting final with Northern Ireland’s Olympic champion Rhys McClenaghan close behind the pair. He’ll also return to competition in the floor and parallel bars, qualifying in sixth and seventh, respectively. We’ll also see Cameron back on high bar hoping to improve his fourth place to podium in the finals and pommel alongside Reuben.
Next up
Saturday 25 July | Women’s team final and individual qualification
- Session 4: 3.45pm-8.30pm, subdivision 3 starting on uneven bars
Sunday 26 July | Individual all-around finals
- Session 1 | men’s – Reuben & Cameron: 12 – 3.30pm
- Session 2 | women’s – gymnasts tbc: 6-9pm
Monday 27 July | Apparatus finals day one: 1-5.30pm
- Men’s floor, pommel horse (Reuben & Cameron) & rings
- Women’s vault and uneven bars (gymnasts tbc)
Tuesday 28 July | Apparatus finals day two: 1-5.30pm
- Men’s parallel bars (Reuben), high bar (Cameron) & vault
- Women’s balance beam & floor (gymnasts to be confirmed)
We look forward to the women’s artistic team beginning their campaign tomorrow – with live coverage on TNT Sports. Click the buttons below to find all the latest news and updates from Glasgow and your nearest club.
Photography credit: Ewan Bootman