Olympics: Adams to compete after startlist omission

Valerie Adams is New Zealand's only defending Olympic champion at the London Games. Photo / AP

Don't panic, Val Adams will throw in London.

When it was revealed an athletics official with the New Zealand squad had bungled over completing Adams' entry form for the shot put, the first thought was panic stations.

Apart from the fact Adams is one of New Zealand's finest athletes - and finest chances for gold on the Olympic Stadium early tomorrow morning NZT - was the notion that four years of accumulated performance, training and single-mindedness had been dashed by the stroke, or lack of stroke, of a pen.

Instead, rest easy. The problem was smartly rectified, all is well with the world and Adams will be in the circle for the start of the qualifying around 9.45pm NZT.

Adams isn't speaking and hasn't for some months, wasn't at the opening ceremony and has had her game face on for some time.

However, it's fair to assume, human nature being what it is, that her jaw may have hit the floor when told of the boo boo.

Pur yourself in her size 13s and Imagine the first thoughts. All that work for nowt. Her Belarusian rival, Nadzeya Ostapchuk, handed the crown without even being able to put up a contest.

There will be an inquiry into how this situation came about. So there should. A head may roll. It could have been a howler to sit with the best.

There have been other foulups which have the ultimate penalty.

Take American sprinters Eddie Hart and Rey Robinson, who were given the wrong start time for their quarter-final at the Munich Olympics of 1972.

They were joint favourites for the 100 metres, but their coach Stan Wright produced a shocker. Hart and Robinson realised the enormity of the blunder as they turned their TV on in their room just in time to watch the race unfold unfold without them.

Their relationship with Wright was, ahem, never quite the same.

On this occasion, it's a case of no harm, no foul, time to move on. But only just. There will be repercussions; it could have been the worst of outcomes.

A gold medal tomorrow morning and all will be forgiven, if not forgotten.