Saville sees gold snatched away

Saville is comforted by fellow Aussie walker Nathan Deakes

Australian race-walker Jane Saville had her Olympic dream shattered in the cruellest circumstances when she was disqualified just 150m away from winning the gold medal in front of her home-town crowd.

Sydneysider Saville was actually in the Stadium Australia tunnel with a winning advantage in the 20km walk when she was shown the red card for her third offence of 'lifting'

Saville wept uncontrollably and had to be comforted as she saw her dream of taking gold dashed while the 50,000-plus crowd waiting to greet her victory were silenced.

I was embarrassed. It was a dream of mine to walk into the stadium first

  Australian race-walker Jane Saville

China's Wang Liping was given a polite ripple of applause as she entered the stadium to win in one hour 29 minutes five seconds, having seen three walkers in front of her disqualified, Saville being the last.

Saville had already had two warnings for running, and admitted: "You don't know where you get them, you just have red dots against your name and I knew I had two red dots.

"I came into the tunnel and slowed down. I saw the chief judge and he started touching his paddle and I thought `No, no."

Dejected

"Then he had to check the number and it was me. What can you do? There is nothing I can do," said a dejected Saville.

"I was embarrassed. It has been a dream of mine to walk into the stadium first. As I came down I was thinking, `I can do this, I'm going to do it. C'est la vie."

Norway's Kjersti Plaetzer was second (1:29.33) with Maria Vasco of Spain third (1:30.23).

Ireland's Gillian O'Sullivan finished a fine 10th in 1:33.10 with team-mate Olive Loughnane (1:38.23) back in 35th spot.

Britain's competitor, Wolverhampton's Lisa Kehler finished in 33rd place in 1:37.47.