Anil Kumar, Booby miss the flight

Aloysius, for whose benefit the women’s high jump event was incorporated, proved to be a non-starter as she withdrew arguing she had already cleared the Olympic qualifying mark of 1.88m at an athletic meet in Bangalore.

The height, which would have been a National record, was later changed to 1.85m by a technical committee.

Anil Kumar, who needed to throw the discus to a distance of 62 metres to qualify for the Olympics, proved to be a big disappointment as he could clear just just 56.67m to rule himself out of contention.

But the biggest drama was reserved for the relay team — CT Durai, Rajeev Balakrishnan, Anand Menzes and Ajay Raj Singh. The quartet was disqualified after the third runner Menzes was found to have run in the second lane instead of fourth.

The relay team had already qualified for the Olympics clocking 39.70s – a National record – at Jakarta meet but the Amateur Athletic Federation of India did not find it impressive enough and had asked them to improve its timing.

They were ruled out of the Sydney squad after this drama, AAFI secretary Lalit Bhanot announced.