Manchester: Kenya suffered a rare setback on Sunday when it failed to win either of the Commonwealth Games marathons ending its hopes of a clean sweep of distance titles.

Kerryn McCann won her first marathon as she led an Australian 1-2-3 in the women's event while unheralded Tanzanian Francis Naali won the men's with the second string Kenyan Joshua Chelanga taking silver and Australian Andrew Letherby edging out the favourite, and two-time Olympic medallist, Eric Wainaina of Kenya.

The men's 200m is shaping up to be the clash of the championships after the 100m debacle as Namibian legend Frankie Fredericks eased through his heat in 20.85sec barely moving a muscle and remaining firmly in first gear.

"It's so good to be back. I'm not taking my health for granted anymore. When I was younger I never thought I would get injured. It's been a hard two years out and the worst thing was running so slowly when I returned," said the 34-year-old who was the 1993 world champion in 200m.

"I'm hoping the young boys will give me a good race," added Fredericks, who has won eight silver medals at world and Olympic Games. England's Olympic silver medallist Darren Campbell also looked extremely comfortable performing in front of his hometown crowd beating off the challenge of South African white hope Morne Nagel.

Campbell has also been boosted by being reunited with his mother after a 10-year estrangement and so the circumstances couldn't be better for him to succeed where Dwain Chambers and Mark Lewis-Francis failed in the 100m.

Agencies