Winchester’s Louise Damen was the first English runner home in the women’s marathon at the Commonwealth Games today.

The race was won by Kenya’s Flomena Cheyech Daniel, while the 31-year-old Damen clocked a time of 2hrs 32mins 59secs to finish in ninth position on her Games debut.

“It’s the first Championships marathon that I have run so it was a slightly more tactical race than I’m probably used to,” said Damen, a teacher at Peter Symonds College.

“I’ve tweaked my nutrition a bit and tweaked my pacing and that seems to have paid off.

“There was incredible crowd support there, I thought London Marathon was amazing but this was something else.

“It’s been a great stepping stone for me towards Rio, that’s the next big target.”

Commonwealth Games England (CGE) leads and manages the participation of the Team England at the Commonwealth Games and Commonwealth Youth Games. We work with sports, Sponsors and Sport England to support the development of athletes and their sports, and to achieve success at Games-time.