In a major embarrassment, the Indian Grand Prix athletics meet had to be conducted at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium without any electricity due to a transformer failure here on Sunday.
Apparently a transformer near the stadium burnt up and as a result the power was shut down in the nearby region, leaving the officials to note the timings manually.
Even though the events will be considered, they won't be recognized for Olympics qualifying since they weren't recorded through electronic scoring.
"It will all be counted because the hand timings are there, we can convert and see but it won't be considered for Olympics," said Sunny Joshua, president of Delhi athletics association.
"There is no problem with jumps and throws because decameter was there, the problems are only with the track events," he added.
There was no confusion in the likes of shotput and discuss throwing as no one broke the Olympic mark. But, the real controversy was in the 100 meter race.
The men's 100m qualifying time is 10.16 seconds and Amiya Kumar Mali managed it with a timing of 10.09, according to the manual timing. Similarly in the women's category, Srabani Nanda cracked 11.23 to finish within the Olympic mark of 11.32 seconds.
When asked on Amiya securing the qualifying time through manually recorded means, Joshua said: "We have to convert that (time) and see, so I can't say anything about that."
Sunny also added that they he had been an athlete and this is the first time he had seen anything like this.
"We had everything ready and in place but unfortunately this happened," he added. Another Delhi Athletics Association official said: "We contacted the stadium administrator and we were told that there was fire on the transformer and fire brigade was called. No proper back-up was in place."
Amiya expressed disappointment that he could not get to know his exact timing.
"I feel bad not just for me, but for everyone who was present at the track," he said. "If we had known our proper timings, it would have helped us to improve on it in the upcoming events."
Nonetheless, he remains confident of qualifying for the Olympics when the Federation Cup takes place here from 28-30 April.
Meanwhile, Chief athletics coach Bahadur Singh termed the whole scenario unfortunate and said after all it was like a build-up tournament.
"This is just a build up tournament. It was very unfortunate and no one can change the circumstances," he said.
"Everyone ran today well. Now they know their timings and can work on what areas they need to improve. They are in good shape, they just need little bit more training," he added.
Poonia fails to make cut
The main spotlight was on Delhi Commonwealth Games gold medalist Krishna Poonia on Sunday. However, the discus thrower failed to clock the required 61 meter mark. The best she could conjure was 55.22m. However, Poonia, who returned to action after a gap of two years due to a knee injury, was not entirely disappointed with her performance.
"I am not disappointed. With just one month of training, I am happy with what I managed, said an upbeat Poonia. "I am confident that I will qualify for Olympics by the first week of June," she added.
Similarly, in the 400m women's event, Machettra Raju Poovamma, another strong contender, failed to reach the required 52.20 seconds, managing only 53.05.