ONE of the most outrageous blunders in athletics history has negated

the finest hour of Scottish marathon runner Trudi Thomson. The

organisers of the World championships admited yesterday that the course

was 400 metres short.

Thomson, Pitreavie's world ultra silver medallist, who sliced 62

seconds from her lifetime best to finish as the leading Briton, was

devastated to learn that this performance, which would have launched her

into the national all-time top-10, will never be recognised.

All three medallists, but only five athletes in all, ran best-ever

times. The winner, European champion Manuela Machado (2hr 25min 39sec)

took more than two minutes from her best, while runner-up Anuta Catuna

(2-26-25), with whom she had staged an hour-long battle, set a Romanian

national record which will not be ratified.

Athletes who believed they had achieved the Olympic qualifying

standard will now have to race again.

A disgusted Machado said: ''If they want me to go and do the extra 400

metres now, I'll do it.''

She was surprised at her time in that heat and asked, on crossing the

line, if she should run a further lap. Many athletes were confused by

the instructions, and Thomson also attempted to run an extra lap.

''I deeply regret this unfortunate mistake, which will not affect the

final placings,'' said competitions director Carl-Gustav Tollemar.

''It's my fault, nobody else's . . . I am ashamed.''

Thomson had been delighted with her twenty-second place in 2-41-42.

The shade temperature was 75[DEG], but there was little of that on the

boiling tarmac of a carnival opening Saturday afternoon. Out there on

the road, it was nearly 15[DEG] hotter. Eleven of the 43 starters failed

to finish.

Edinburgh's Alison Rose was in obvious distress, twenty-eighth in

2-45-52, with tears the last moisture to be surrendered by her

dehydrated body as she finished three minutes outside her best.

With the race, held mid-afternoon in defiance of competitors' wishes,

producing incompetence of such magnitude, gob-smacked pundits would have

been unsurprised had Tollemar announced a re-run this morning.

Thomson rightly views this debut UK marathon run as a triumph. ''I'm

disappointed at losing my personal best, but I'm still pleased with my

performance,'' she said.

After the birth of her third daughter six years ago, Thomson weighed

13.5 stones, suffering from the condition, bulimia. Now she barely

weighs eight stones.

''Yet I still suffer,'' she revealed. ''It will never leave me. When I

look in the mirror, I see a different person from everyone else. I still

think I am fat.

''I can't believe what I have achieved. Just standing on that

start-line was a triumph for me. I wondered what I was doing with all

these stars. I'm used to much longer distances. It was a bit of a sprint

for me.''

The eve of the race was the fortieth birthday of her husband, Ian. ''I

saw him for just 45 minutes. Enough time to hand him the children's

birthday cards, and a wee slice of birthday cake.''

Machado finished blowing kisses to the crowd. The difference in the

shortened course, worth around 90 seconds, means she would still have

set a personal record.

The only other title of the opening day, the women's shot, went to

former European champion Astrid Kumbernuss. The 6ft 3in German, almost

double Machado's weight at 14.5 stones, reached 21.22m, the longest

women's shot putt for five years and the biggest championship

title-winning putt since the Seoul Olympics.

Kumbernuss dismissed the inevitable question: ''I have been

dope-tested four or five times this year in competition and eight times

out of competition.''

Britain's Judy Oakes, in her nineteenth international year and on her

seventy-first appearance for Britain, reached 17.87m, missing the final

by just one place.