Australia’s Mikaela Dingley has been upgraded to a bronze medal in the T1500m T54 at the Commonwealth Games after Canadian rival Nandini Sharma was disqualified and stripped of second place. There was chaos about 200m into Wednesday night’s wheelchair race when another Aussie in Eliza Ault-Connell went down heavily in a nasty crash.
Sharma’s rear wheel clipped the front of world champion Noemi Alphonse’s front wheel as the Canadian attempted to pass. Alphonse of Mauritius then touched wheels with Ault-Connell, which caused both of them to crash.
Nandini Sharma was disqualified after a collision that brought down Australia’s Eliza Ault-Connell (R). Image: Channel 7/Getty
Sharma finished the race and thought she’d won silver, but was later disqualified by race officials for what was deemed an “incorrect pass”. Dingley was upgraded to the bronze medal after initially finishing fourth, after the Canadian team lodged an appeal of Sharma’s disqualification but were rejected.
Athletics Canada said in a statement: “Having considered the multiple appeals that were submitted the Jury has decided that the disqualification will stand. While Athletics Canada is disappointed with this decision, we accept the process and look forward to Nandini competing again in the T53/54 400m race.”
The disqualification was based off World Para Athletics rule 18.4, which calls for an athlete to be disqualified if they cause illegal interference. Paralympic great Danny Crates said in commentary: “I think that was just a case of bad racing from someone. It happened so fast, we didn’t exactly see who caused it. This would not be how anyone would want this race to unfold.”
Eliza Ault-Connell came down heavily in a nasty crash. Image: Getty
Officials will often opt to restart a race if multiple competitors crash, but on this occasion they didn’t. Scotland’s Melanie Woods went on to finish first in a new Comm Games record time of 3:33.39, while Ellis Kottas of England got the silver after initially finishing third.
Olympian Tim Hutchings disagreed with the initial call to continue racing in commentary. “Someone should’ve stepped out, really, falls in the first 200m,” he said. “Someone should’ve stepped out and stopped them on the home straight with less than 300m gone.”
Nandini Sharma (L) was disqualified and stripped of second place. Image: Getty
There were similar scenes earlier on Wednesday when Australia’s Ollie Hoare was tripped during his heat in the mile. The Aussie team launched a protest and Hoare was qucily reinstated into the final. Some felt South African runner Tshepo Tshite should have been disqualified for bringing down Hoare, but he was allowed to retain his place in the final.