England claim gold in Delhi

England's Fran Halsall and Liam Tancock and Scotland's Robbie Renwick all claimed gold as the Home Nations enjoyed a successful second day of competition at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

Halsall, the world 100metres freestyle silver medallist, claimed an unexpected gold in the 50m butterfly, Tancock added the Commonwealth 50m backstroke title to his world crown and Renwick made up for last night's disappointment in the 400m freestyle to win the 200m.

Halsall and Tancock's England team-mate Kate Haywood took bronze in the 50m breaststroke, likewise Stephanie Millward in the Para-swimming S9 50m freestyle.

However, it was not all good news for England as European silver medallist Lizzie Simmonds failed to progress in the 100m backstroke finishing 10th overall.

World and European champion Gemma Spofforth, who complained of not feeling good in the water this morning, made it through sixth fastest but did not look at ease in contrast to the Australians who fill all three top places.

Simmonds and Halsall share a house in Loughborough but it will be the latter who is happy this evening as she continued her form from August's European Championships.

The 20-year-old won five medals in Budapest and she got the afternoon session off to a perfect start with a surprise victory.

The Liverpool-born swimmer was fourth behind all three Australians at 20metres before she overhauled them bit by bit to touch in 26.24seconds, 0.03secs ahead of world champion Marieke Guehrer with Emily Seebohm claiming her second medal of the Games in third.

Halsall had to overcome a bout of Delhi belly and said: "It definitely wasn't expected, even my coach got a little bit excited about that and he doesn't get excited by much.

"It was a bit frantic trying to get prepared for my 100 freestyle with all this stuff going on around me."

She added: "It was really nice to see the England flag at the top and two Aussies underneath.

"I don't really know the words to Jerusalem, I was going to sing Land of Hope and Glory because that's the one I know.

"It's good - to have Liam afterwards and for Kate to win a bronze and they are all in my group for training so we've had a fantastic evening and it has just given us a buzz for the rest of the meet."