It is fair to say that Bermuda’s track and field athletes did not quite deliver in the style they would have hoped at the Commonwealth Games.

There were, however, several chasms of light to pierce the initial gloom felt by those who believed that they had failed to do themselves justice at Hampden Park this week.

The Island’s team of six harboured hopes of personal bests and even medal aspirations heading into the Glasgow Games, but only Shaquille Dill appeared particularly satisfied with his performance at Scotland’s biggest sporting event.

Dill, an 800 metres specialist, was arguably Bermuda’s surprise package at these Games, running with a maturity that belied his 20 years of age.

Considering the 800 was almost of Olympic standard, with the field including David Rudisha, one of the greatest athletes of all time, and Botswana’s Nijel Amos, who snatched a surprise gold in Glasgow, going one better than the silver he won in London two years ago, Dill’s display deserves even greater recognition.

Not content to have reached the star-studded semi-finals at his first major Games, Dill then finished a respectable sixth in a time of 1min 48.59sec.

He would have been forgiven for feeling slightly overwhelmed by running in the neighbouring lane to Rudisha, the Olympic and world record-holder from Kenya. However, nothing appears to faze the former Berkeley Institute student, who will no doubt return to Bermuda a far savvier athlete than when he left.

“I just tried to stay with the top runners and hang on for as long as I could,” Dill said. “It was a great experience to be able to race against athletes of the calibre of Rudisha.

“You can definitely learn a lot from competing against runners like him.

“I feel like these Games were a learning experience for me and I’ve just got to take things step by step.”

Dill’s team-mate, Aaron Evans, appeared downhearted after his semi-final, finishing eighth in 1:50.17, although he, too, showed portions of promise, having stormed to victory his heat despite battling injuries for most of the season.

Somewhat disappointingly, only Shianne Smith, the cousin of Dill, was able to set a personal best, finishing fifth in the 800, her final event, in a time of 2:14.73.

The Montpellier-based athlete placed eighth overall in the heptathlon with 5,187 points from her seven events.

“The 800 has always been one of my strong events and it was a good way to finish with a PB,” the 28-year-old said.

“I’m my own worst critic, so I’m never really happy with what I do, although there’s plenty for me to build on from these Games.”

While he failed to threaten the podium in the long jump final, Tyrone Smith, Bermuda’s most experienced athlete, continues to prove that he belongs at the elite level.

Success, disappointment or indifferent, Smith’s fun-loving demeanour rarely seems to change even when the dice do not roll in his favour.

The two-times Olympian admitted that he had hoped for more than his eighth-place finish with a best jump of 7.79 metres, but said that he had savoured every moment of performing in front of an atmospheric crowd.

“We kill ourselves all year round on the track and if you don’t have fun at competitions like this, you probably don’t have a pulse,” said Smith, who turns 30 next week.

“There has to be a point that makes all the training worth it, and being able to jump in front of 40,000 people has to be that moment.

“I had a great time even though I had hoped things would have gone a bit better for me.”

Smith’s fellow long jumper, Arantxa King, was at a loss to explain what went wrong in her long jump qualifying, unfathomably failing to reach the medal round.

King had strongly expected to cruise into the final but was only able to register one legal mark with an ineffective leap of 6.02 metres — some way short of her personal best of 6.46 — missing out on a place among the 12 finalists by 27 centimetres.

“There was really no question about me not getting to the final,” the Kentucky-based jumper said. “It’s so frustrating because I know I’m in great shape and that I could have placed in the final.

“It’s actually more annoying than anything else and both the jumps that weren’t recorded would have been perfectly fine to get me into the final.”

Tre Houston, the sprinter, also failed to perform to his full capabilities in Scotland’s largest city. The 24-year-old had targeted reaching at least the semi-finals of both his events, the 100 metres and 200 metres, but struggled to find the extra gear needed to advance from the qualifiers through a mixture of misfortune and poor form.

Houston confessed that this blunder in the 100 heats, when he lost his footing out of the starting blocks, had tortured his mind before his 200 heat.

And although there were no stumbles in his favoured event, he could not achieve the kind of redemption that he had of hoped for.

“There was no stumble this time and I’m a lot happier to put a start together today,” said Houston, who placed fourth in his 200 heat in 21.39.

“I couldn’t stop watching the video of the 100 metres, but the amount of support I received on Twitter and Facebook afterwards was absolutely unbelievable.

“I was happy to come out and compete today, although I was a bit disappointed with the time and not being able to reach the semi-finals.”

Donna Watson, the Bermuda National Athletics Association president, conceded that some of the results had fallen short of her expectations, but insisted that she remained proud of each of the athletes who represented the Island.

“My athletes gave their best [although] these may not be the results we were exactly looking for at the end of the day,” Watson wrote on her Facebook page.

“That’s OK, as I am still and will always be proud of my athletes for representing Bermuda at any event.

“All of this makes athletes tough and that is what sport is about; the good and the not so good.

“We had athletes in semi-finals and in the finals, so good job to all of them.”