Wearing bib 13, Crieff canoeist Fiona Pennie became embroiled in a major controversy after narrowly failing to qualify for yesterday's K1 kayak final at the European Slalom Championships in Tacen, Slovenia.
The 2013 European champion was third-quickest in Friday's qualifying heats and was again third-fastest in yesterday's semis after clocking 96.58 seconds, but she also clipped three gates to incur six seconds of time penalties and so missed out on the final by just one place and 0.32sec.
One of the penalties was awarded retrospectively, and Pennie unsuccessfully appealed against it in a bid to make the final, but what really infuriated her was an alleged breach of the rules by one of the top ten qualifiers.
The former world silver medallist was reluctant to name names, but she remained adamant that her competitor's boat weighed under the legal limit of nine kilos and that disqualification was only avoided because her rival's coach and the finish judge came from the same country and recorded a false weight.
"It has to be nine kilos or above and several people saw the official reading on the scales was 8.98, but the coach knew the guy who was weighing the boat and it was put through as 9.02," explained Pennie.
"Having an underweight boat is obviously illegal. It happened to [Olympic champion] Joe Clarke a few years ago and he was disqualified, but we were told that once the boat leaves the scales and the finish area, then there's nothing you can do. It's outwith my control, but you can imagine how annoyed I am right now. It was definitely unlucky bib number 13 today!
"The head coach from the nation involved was not there at the finish and he has since apologised to me and said that it shouldn't have happened. Hopefully the same thing won't happen again in the future, which is why I'm talking about it now."
Despite her frustration, Pennie also conceded that she should still have been able to qualify for the final: "I was definitely disappointed with my own run and annoyed how I hit the gates. One of the touches was added after my run and we inquired about that and made a protest because I didn't think I'd hit the gate. I would have felt it on my face.
"I'm not racing at the World Cup in Prague in two weeks, but there are plenty more races to come this summer and there's the World Championships at the end of the season."
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