Protests after controversial crash mean that Scotland's gold medallist Melanie Woods will try do it all again on Friday morning.

The women’s T54 1500m final at the Commonwealth Games is going to be re-run on Friday morning (July 31). The event, first staged on Wednesday evening, had initially been won by Scotland’s Melanie Woods in a Games record of 3:33.39, but the early stages of the race were marred by a controversial crash. 

The collision happened on the opening bend and resulted in four of the finalists crashing, with two unable to finish. Woods had managed to keep clear of the trouble to finish as a convincing winner and, while Nandini Sharma (3:42.38) had initially been awarded with silver, the Canadian was disqualified for her part in the incident.

England’s Ellis Kottas (4:22.07) was moved up to second place, while Australia’s Mikaela Dingley (4:42.25) was third but, after a number of protests, Games officials have decided to do it all again at 10.24am on Friday. Sharma’s disqualification still stands. 

“I definitely heard a bit of a crash behind me,” said Woods after the race. “I looked up at the screen and saw what had happened, so I just kept going. I was thinking, "Will it be called back? Will it not?" I decided to keep racing and see what happened. 

“You do get really close to each other, but we're all used to it. That's the nature of racing. We're used to going at high speeds, being close together and having to control our tyres, so crashes aren't uncommon.”

Of the incident, Kross added: “From my perspective, everyone wanted to get into lane one first. It's always a battle. I think two people clipped each other, and it just looked like a domino effect – one person went down, then another. I had to swerve out of the way. I did hit the wall, but the chair seems to be okay, hopefully. I managed not to topple over, so I just gave it my best shot. 

“I didn't know whether there was a rule that the race would be stopped and restarted because it happened so early. I was shouting to the officials, asking if it was over. Then, about 100m later, I heard my coach shouting, "Go for it, Ellis," and I just had to lock in.”

Meanwhile, Scotland will have two athletes in the final of the women’s Mile on the final night of athletics at the Scotstoun on Saturday. Jemma Reekie put the disappointment of her 800m exit the previous evening behind her to progress from the opening semi-final on Thursday morning (July 30) with a time of 4:35.15, while British champion Sarah Calvert dramatically grabbed the final qualifying spot with her sixth-placed finish in heat two with 4:32.04. That just pipped her fellow Scot Erin Wallace, who missed out by 0.04 seconds.

Wales’ Ava Lloyd was third in that race with a PB of 4:31.41 to join them, though her compatriot Melissa Courtney-Bryant, as well as England’s Katie Snowden and Revee Walcott-Nolan, did not progress.

Full results here