An administrative stuff up at the track in Delhi has left Kiwi 200 metre runner Monique Williams confused and fuming after her final was bizarrely postponed until tonight (NZ time).
Earlier in the night, Williams qualified for the gold medal race after registering a time of 23.63.
On the official schedule, she was then due to run with seven other athletes in the final scarcely two hours later.
Instead, the men’s 200m final was pushed forward and an announcement was made over the loudspeaker at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium that the women’s race would take place on Monday instead.
The delay came after an official protest was made against Cyprus’ Eleni Artymata who was accused of touching a line during qualifying.
But adding to the mayhem was the fact officials had decided to implement a series of last-minute bizarre lane changes for competitors, Williams included, which they could not explain when asked.
“Originally, there was a lane draw and I was assigned to lane eight,” a baffled Williams told Stuff.co.nz.
"I turned up to the final call room and they had switched lanes and I was assigned lane nine. I was sitting there going ‘why would you suddenly switch lanes?’
"That wasn’t even the main part of the story. Once we arrived at the call room we were informed there had been a protest against the girl from Cyprus (Eleni Artymata) who apparently stood on the line in a semi-final.
"Normally you get disqualified straight after a race. I don’t really know why it didn’t go through in time.
“Obviously the Cyprus team is going to put in a protest in response and because it’s going to take so long they’ve decided we will run tomorrow.”
Williams said she would have preferred to run last night and described the way things panned out as a shambles.
“It would have been an advantage for me to run straight away because I am feeling fit,” she said.
"Tomorrow everybody is going to turn up fresh.
"At this point in time, we don’t know what time the race is, who is in the race or what lane we are in.
“It’s a bit of a shambles to be fair.”
Williams said she was stunned by the officials’ lack of answers around her lane change.
“I’ve never experienced anything like this before,” she said.
"I’m a bit stunned and I’m quite annoyed.
"I got annoyed at the start about my lane being switched; I’ve never flipped out like that before but this is a final after all.
"I shouldn’t have been in lane nine, especially after there was a previous draw and they couldn’t tell me why they had changed it.
"They said they didn’t know why the lanes had changed and I don’t know is not good enough.
“I don’t know what to think. I’m really annoyed underneath it all but you just have to keep your cool.”
Williams expects she will run in her final tonight (NZT).
Also at the track last night, 1500m silver medallist Nikki Hamblin scraped through her heat to qualify for the 800m final in seventh place.
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Hamblin appeared to be annoyed with herself and didn’t speak to the media before leaving the venue. It’s understood she was suffering from a minor illness but an official with the team said she wouldn’t miss tonight’s final.
Meanwhile, Auckland’s Andrea Miller, competing at her first Commonwealth Games, booked her place in tonight’s 100m hurdles final with a time of 13.35.
Miller, the fourth-equal fastest in qualifying for the final, will run for a medal early tomorrow morning at 1:05am (NZT).
To win gold she will have to be on top of her game and then some with Australia’s Beijing Olympic silver medallist Sally Pearson, who last week was disqualified in farcical circumstances four hours after winning gold in the 100m final for a false start, the massive favourite.
In the high jump, Elizabeth Lamb, the youngest member of the track and field team, had a night to forget after finishing in sixth place.
Lamb looked good early but despite a personal best of 1.85m, she couldn’t find a way over 1.83m in her three attempts.
Paralympic youngster Matthew Lack also came away empty-handed in his quest for a medal in Delhi after agonisingly missing out on bronze by 0.06 seconds in the men’s T54 1500m wheelchair race.