COMMONWEALTH GAMES: Horsham's Jade Lally finishes seventh in discus final

Her best distance was 53.97 metres with her second throw of six attempts allowed during the competition held on the Gold Coast.

Competing in the Carrara Stadium, Lally trailed more than 11 metres behind the gold medal winner Australia’s Dani Stevens.

The Australian led the 13-woman field from the start and won the event with a Games record of 68.26m.

This was more than eight metres ahead of her silver medalist Seema Punia (India), who recorded 60.41m with her first and best throw.

Impressive Stevens, who is also Lally’s training partner, produced a remarkable five throws of more than 60 metres.

Lally has been plagued with a back injury since last year, which also hampered her form during last year’s World Championships in London.

She has been unable to match the spectacular 65.10m achieved in Sydney in 2016, which was her personal best and is the English record.

However her early season form this year had looked promising as she threw 59.11 metres just four weeks ago on the way to finishing second at the Sydney Grand Prix.

Had she been in the same form this afternoon it would have been good enough to win her second Commonwealth Games bronze medal, repeating the feat she achieved at Glasgow in 2014.