Luke Turley, whose career began in Stevenage and Hatfield, is a Commonwealth Games bronze medal winner.

Turley swam an impeccably paced race in the Birmingham 2022 men's 1500m freestyle at Sandwell Aquatics Centre this evening (Wednesday, August 3) to finish with a new lifetime best time of 15 minutes, 12.78 seconds.

The swimmer, who now trains at the British Swimming Performance Centre in Bath, Somerset, qualified fifth into the finals after yesterday's heat swim.

But in the final, only Northern Ireland's Daniel Wiffen, who swum the 30-length race in a time of 14:51.79, and Commonwealth champion Sam Short, who finished in 14:48.54, finished ahead of Turley.

In the first phase of the event, Australia's Short raced ahead and turned at 400m in a time of 3:56.42. Wiffen followed closely behind, just 0.10 seconds behind. Team England's Toby Robinson turned third.

At the 450m mark, Northern Irishman Wiffen had eased ahead of Short into pole position, but the pair were neck-and-neck again after 900m.

As Short and Wiffen battled for the one-two, Turley managed to pull up alongside his English teammate Toby Robinson by the 850m mark, and was ahead by the 1000m turn.

Around the 1400m turn and during the last 100m dash for the final touch, Short had pulled a comfortable 2.26 seconds ahead of Wiffen. Turley held a healthy lead over Robinson, who ultimately finished in a time of 15:14.02 against Turley's 15:12.78.

Turley is not the first medal winner with Hertfordshire origins in the sixth and final day of the Commonwealth Games 2022 swimming competition, which began on Friday, July 29.

Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games medallist and Hatfield Swimming Club competitor Louise Fiddes also claimed bronze in the women's 200m freestyle S14 category.

She completed her race in a time of 2:11.22, with English teammate Jessica-Jane Applegate securing silver and Northern Ireland's Bethany Firth in first place.

The BBC is streaming Commonwealth Games sessions on iPlayer (https://bbc.in/3PMWbvM).

Live Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games coverage is being shown on BBC TV channels until the final day on Monday, August 8.