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Against All Odds

Artistic Gymnastics

Godwin Leads Australia to Team Gold After Achilles Return

Georgia Godwin anchored Australia to women's artistic team gold at the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games with 158.400, less than a year after tearing her Achilles tendon. She landed her final dismount, held the pose, and turned to a teammate before the tears came.

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Godwin Leads Australia to Team Gold After Achilles Return

Photo: ausgymnastics (Wikimedia Commons) · CC BY 3.0

Georgia Godwin anchored Australia to women's artistic team gold at the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games. The team won gold with 158.400, while Canada took second, led by Ellie Black, with 157.300. She landed her final dismount, held the pose, and turned to a teammate before the tears came.

Level from the first bar to the last vault

Australia led from the start. Kate McDonald opened with a big 14.200 on the uneven bars, and Ellie Black kept Canada close as the two nations traded scores. The margin held all afternoon.

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Emotional Godwin makes history as Aussies win gold

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Australia went into the final rotation 2.500 points ahead of Canada, and Godwin landed two vaults for 13.350 to hold off their rivals. The five-woman squad stayed strong across all four apparatus to win the nation's first team gold since the 2010 Delhi Games. Four of them had won silver in 2022, with 19-year-old Ruby Pass making her Games debut.

A ninth medal, and the most decorated of all

The result gave Godwin her ninth Commonwealth medal, moving her past Allana Slater as her nation's most decorated women's gymnast at the Games. She had torn her Achilles tendon in May 2024, an injury that kept her out of the Paris Olympics. This was her first major meet since.

The road back was hard and quiet. "It's been a horrible, horrible road back," Godwin told reporters, adding that the mental fight had been among the hardest of her life.

For the captain who once feared she was finished, the podium gave its answer. She now holds more medals than any Australian woman before her. This first gold, she says, is the one she treasures most.

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