So there we have it. Ten sports and more than 10 days of action.

Team Wales return from the Commonwealth Games with 31 medals including nine gold, 10 silver and 12 bronze, while sprint cyclist Emma Finucane proved one of the stars in Glasgow.

Finucane showed the success of the Wales women during the past two weeks as they were involved in 21 medals.

Australia’s national anthem appeared to be on a loop with 70 golds as they topped the medal table, with Wales finishing ninth.

So was this a success for Team Wales? Chef de mission Gethin Jones says so, but is he right?

Wales’ most successful Games were on the Gold Coast in 2018, where they won 36 medals – 10 golds, 12 silvers and 14 bronze.

These Commonwealth Games in Glasgow cannot be directly compared to the event in Australia eight years ago because there were fewer sports and medals.

This event was a condensed competition after the state of Victoria in Australia pulled out of hosting and the Scottish city stepped into save the Games.

On this occasion, Wales surpassed the 28-medal haul of Birmingham in 2022, although they finished one place lower in the medal table.

Cycling was the dominant sport with 11 medals, with six in swimming, five in athletics, four in boxing, three in artistic gymnastics and one each in bowls and weightlifting.

Finucane proved why she is considered a generational talent by rewriting the record books with four golds in four events in four days.

The 23-year-old became the first track cyclist and Welsh athlete to achieve this feat with success in consecutive days in the the team sprint, individual sprint, keirin and 1,000m time trial.

She was rewarded with the honour of carrying the flag at the closing ceremony.

Finucane led a strong Welsh cycling contingent, with world champion Anna Morris not far behind the sprint star in the medal stakes.

Endurance rider Morris finished won two golds and a bronze, while Jess Roberts, Rhian Edmunds and Lowri Thomas and Ciara Oliva also stood on the podium.

Finucane was not the only Team Wales member to rewrite the record books.

Matt Richards became the first Wales swimmer to win four medals in one Games, with two silver and two bronze, although the gold medal in both the 100m and 200m freestyle just eluded him.

Richards was the driving force in a swimming squad that won four more medals than in Birmingham.

Team captain Olivia Breen briefly became the most successful Welshwoman in Commonwealth Games history, when she added T38 long jump gold to silver in the 100m. This was before being taken over by Finucane.

There was also the wonderful moment Ciara Oliva managed a bronze in the women’s team pursuit.

Oliva and her husband Lewis had both come out of retirement after having three children.

Weightlifter Laura Hughes also won bronze eight years on from the same medal she achieved in Australia.

Boxer Rosie Eccles will hang up her gloves after completing the set of medals with her bronze.

Eccles had some choice words for some of her critics in her post-match fight where she also insisted she would not reverse her retirement decision, saying she “had a full heart but empty tank”.

Finucane‘s fourth podium position will be among Wales’ defining moments of the Games but will be rivalled by the first gold.

Not just because it was the first time Wales had topped the podium and heard the national anthem, but because of the manner in which Ruby Evans achieved it.

The Welsh gymnast had suffered disappointment with her team-mates by finishing fourth in the team competition.

That was compounded in the all-around individual event when a poor balance beam routine saw her fall off and effectively ended her medal hopes. She ended up sixth.

Evans finished the competition in tears and you wondered whether that would be her defining image in Glasgow.

The Cardiff gymnast sat out the following day as identical twins Emily and Abigail Roper won bronze medals on different apparatus within the space of two hours.

Evans then returned with a brilliant floor routine that delivered gold.

Expectation surrounding the Olympian was intense before the Commonwealth Games and she delivered under pressure. From despair to delight within 48 hours.

The inclusivity of these Games has often been highlighted and the Para-sport influence has again been strong in Team Wales, with 10 medals to show for their efforts.

Para-swimmer Ela Letton-Jones started the ball rolling by winning Wales’ first medal on the opening night, with Rhys Darbey later joining her on the podium.

Breen and Aled Davies led the way in athletics with gold, while discus throwers Funmi Oduwaiye and Bree Cronin also chipped in with medals.

Para-cyclist James Ball and his pilot Matt Rotherham had to settle for two silvers as they could not overcome home hero Neil Fachie.

Then there was the Para-bowls mixed pair of Steffan James and Julie Thomas who claimed bronze.

They were guided by Jamie Jones and John Wilson, who at 72 was the oldest Team Wales member to stand on the podium in these Games.

Thomas, who lost her sight before taking up bowls, provided one of the most heartwarming moments of the Games.

Or more specifically her faithful guide dog Yoko did when she was awarded a costume for the closing ceremony.

There might have been no medals but there was a welcome debut for the 3×3 wheelchair basketball teams.

The Welsh Para-athletes delivered again as they accounted for all five of the track and field medals.

It was the second successive Games n which an able-bodied athlete did not finish on the podium in track and field, with fourth-place finishes for Jake Heyward and Charlotte Henrich in the men’s mile and women’s 400m respectively.

Sprinter Jeremiah Azu could not improve on his fifth place from four years ago in a world-class 100m raced in atrocious conditions.

Welsh Athletics will point to the fact that 15 of the 18 athletes who competed achieved top-six placings, but they will want some podium positions in India in four years.

Boxing had a decent return of medals with four podiums from the seven-strong team, including silvers for Orlando Holley-Sotomi and Connor Williams, but they will be disappointed to be leaving a Games without a gold for the first time since 2014.

There will also be an inquest into the Welsh netball set-up after they finish 10th out of 12, two places lower than the eighth they managed at Birmingham 2022, after just one win from their six games, while there were no medals for judo.

There are also the moments of drama and near misses you associate with major events.

The velodrome provided one, with Ioan Hepburn being led away from the track distraught before the men’s team sprint bronze medal race because he was unable to compete because of illness with Wales unable to compete in the race.

The following day Morris was denied a silver medal in the scratch race, which took place just an hour after her individual pursuit success, when she was demoted from second to fifth.

The Indian city of Ahmedabad will host the next event in 2030 after Glasgow kept the Commonwealth Games alive.

It will represent the 100th birthday of the Games and it will be interesting to see how the future of the event fits into the modern sporting calendar.

While stuck in the bubble of Glasgow 2026, there is the realisation this was a stripped back Games, even though the positive stance would be to call it “reimagined”.

The challenge always is for the sports now is to try to maintain profile following a competition that is battling to stay relevant.

Chef de mission Jones says “we need everyone to get behind Team Wales over the next four years”.

Then we will do it all again in India in 2030.