"He is a big time performer. Every opportunity he has had, he has taken. This is just an amazing step in his progression to be a truly amazing step towards him being a medal prospect at the Tokyo Olympics," said Hooker.
Marschall has been a star junior but this was the breakthrough victory for the 20-year-old who missed the final at the Rio Olympics on count back. He immediately understood the parallel with Hooker in Melbourne in 2006.
Dani Stevens notched a Commonwealth record to win gold in the discus.
Photo: AAP
"We are on a similar path actually. Steve won 2006 Comm Games, home games, and I just did exactly the same thing, but Steve went world No.1 the next year so that is the next goal," Marschall said.
After indifferent early jumping Marschall was the first to clear 5.55m, with Barber taking until his third attempt to clear it. Barber won gold in Glasgow but had an eventful four years afterwards. He was done for cocaine use in 2016 but argued that he took the drug accidentally when a woman he met on Craiglist passed on the drug to him when kissing the night before the drug test.
Canadian authorities accepted his explanation. Twelve months later, he came out as gay.
Barber is an excellent pole vaulter – one of a small club who has cleared six metres – and was jumping well but inconsistently on the Gold Coast.
When it came to it at 5.70m, Barber had missed his three tries. Marschall had missed twice and it came down to one last jump – and he nailed it. He then had a go at the Commonwealth record, cheekily set one centimetre higher than Hooker's 5.8m mark. He missed.
Earlier, Brooke Stratton claimed silver in the long jump only months after doubting she would be in the game, as she wore a moon boot to deal with foot stress fractures after also missing Glasgow through injury four years ago.
"I am a pretty emotional person so it was just so special to have my family in the crowd watching and all of Australia watching," she said
Controversy hit the men's 200m final, with England's Zharnel Hughes disqualified after crossing the line first. He was found to have interfered with Trinidad and Tobago's Jareem Richards 10 metres from the line. Hughes and Richards both finished in 20.12s but Hughes would have taken the gold on photo save for the fact he threw an arm wide into Richards and was deemed to have impeded him.
In the 200m, Shaunae Miller-Uibo didn't need to dive this time to claim gold. Miller-Uibo won gold in the 400m in Rio when she dived across the line to beat Allyson Felix, but here the tall, big-striding runner from the Bahamas comfortably beat Rio 100 and 200m champion Elaine Thompson, winning in 22.09s.
Australia's Luke Mathews looked dead and buried in the 800m but surged in the last 30 metres to come from nowhere to win bronze. Amazingly, Botswanas Nijel Amos, the silver medallist from the London Olympics and gold medallist from Glasgow, and this meet's pre-race favourite, finished last.
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Michael Gleeson is a senior AFL football writer and Fairfax Media's athletics writer. He also covers tennis, cricket and other sports. He won the AFL Players Association Grant Hattam Trophy for excellence in journalism for the second time in 2014 and was a finalist in the 2014 Quill Awards for best sports feature writer. He was also a finalist in the 2014 Australian Sports Commission awards for his work on Boots for Kids. He is a winner of the AFL Media Association award for best news reporter and a two-time winner of Cricket Victorias cricket writer of the year award. Michael has covered multiple Olympics, Commonwealth Games and world championships and 15 seasons of AFL, He has also written seven books – five sports books and two true crime books.
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