Zharnel Hughes ran from a would-be robber pointing a gun in his face earlier this year and on Thursday sprinted to Commonwealth gold – but he could not escape the verdict of the judges who stripped him of the title.

The 22-year-old Englishman was allowed to complete a lap of honour draped in a St George flag and under the impression he had won gold in the 200m in 20.12sec. But a whisper from a friend in the crowd broke the news to him that he had been disqualified for obstructing Trinidad and Tobago’s Jereem Richards, who finished second, in the dying moments of the race.

It was a chaotic addendum to an evening during which Team England clawed back some respectability in the athletics stadium with five medals, an impressive bronze for Dina Asher-Smith in the 200m among them.

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Hughes appeared to run out of steam towards the end of an absorbing race and extended a forearm across Richards’s lane. On being told of the disqualification the Englishman, who led throughout the race after an electrifying start, looked shocked but continued to pose for photographs.

England lodged an appeal against the disqualification but a panel of judges from the Bahamas, Singapore and Norfolk Island upheld the decision more than 90 minutes after he crossed the line. Richards was upgraded to gold, Aaron Brown of Canada was promoted to silver and Northern Ireland’s Leon Reid sobbed after being told he would receive a bronze medal.

Richards said he believed he would have overcome Hughes had he not been impeded. “He was ahead and when I started to catch him he started to break down and I felt his hand come across and hit me,” the Trinidadian sprinter added. “That’s probably why they disqualified him. If he didn’t hit me I would have gone past him. That hit threw me off my rhythm.”

It would have been a first major title for Hughes, who impressed through the rounds and in a warm-up race in Australia.

In January he had been left shaken when shot at in an attempted robbery at his training base in Jamaica, where he was loading his equipment into a car after a session at the Racers Track Club and a place he used to train alongside Usain Bolt. “This guy just came up pointing a gun in my face,” Hughes said at the time. “He asked me for my phone and I ran off and the guy opened fire.”

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Asher-Smith, Hughes’s former girlfriend, said she felt emotional for him after the disqualification. “I know how much this meant to him but he is in great shape and that is what you have to take away from it. He has a whole year to get a first, which I know he will.”

Earlier she took bronze in the 200m, one of the most hotly contested races of the athletics programme at the Carrara Stadium, finishing ahead of the double Olympic champion Elaine Thompson of Jamaica. Asher-Smith, 22, was leading coming off the bend but was caught by the world champion Shaunae Miller-Uibo, who took gold in a Games record of 22.09sec with Jamaica’s Shericka Jackson winning silver in 22.18.

Before Thursday evening’s session Team England had won only two athletics medals in four days but they claimed five in two hours, kickstarted by Sophie Hahn taking gold in the T38 100m in 12.46sec. Shara Proctor won bronze in the long jump with a fourth-round leap of 6.75m, and Luke Cutts cleared 5.45m to clinch bronze in the pole vault. Kyle Langford concluded the evening with a storming finish to take silver in the 800m.

The 22-year-old came home strongly, by far the fastest-finishing man in the field. He covered the final 100m in 13.26sec but could not quite catch Wycliffe Kinyamal of Kenya.

“With 200m to go I felt absolutely awesome,” Langford said. “I got stuck in a bit of traffic but they started to die, a lot of them. When I got round the bend I just had so much left, I know I should’ve been winning it. Every training session and run I do I envisage myself winning gold so to come up short is gutting but as an athlete you either win or you learn. By the Tokyo Olympics it’s definitely going to be gold, I can assure you.”

Katarina Johnson-Thompson led the heptathlon with 3,765 points after the first day of competition, 120 clear of her closest rival. It was a mediocre opening day for the 25-year-old who concluded the first four disciplines with a best effort of only 11.45m in the shot put. She admitted to feeling mentally drained after winning pentathlon gold at the world indoor championships in Birmingham last month.

“I’m happy I’m in the lead, a bit confused with some of my results but it’s what I should expect in April,” the Liverpudlian said. “After Birmingham I was more mentally tired than physically tired so instead of pushing on I had to let my body rest and take it easy.”