Australian cycling star Felicity Wilson-Haffenden has been disqualified from her ride-off for bronze at the Commonwealth Games.
Wilson-Haffenden and teammate Sophie Edwards were disqualified after random post-race checks, which are common in the sport, following their qualifying rides in the women's 4000m individual pursuit on day two of track cycling in Glasgow.
Wilson-Haffenden's disqualification has alarmed and frustrated Australian team staff, given it was a subjective call on her shoulder taping by an official from the UCI, the sport's world governing body.
Edwards' penalty was for having too much padding inside her helmet and was not an issue for the Australians, given it was an equipment matter and she finished well outside medal contention.
Wilson-Haffenden had qualified fourth-fastest.
"The UCI concluded the taping of the shoulder constituted, according to them in the rule book, a morphological change," AusCycling performance manager Jesse Korf told reporters.
"But they weren't able to articulate what that exactly was, because it's a grey area - you cannot measure what a morphological change is.
"We looked into it and being that it's not measurable and subjective, unfortunately that conclusion is final, which we're most certainly not happy with and Felicity is upset, of course."
The disqualification raised questions from New Zealand journalists at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome, given Edwards and Wilson-Haffenden won gold medals on day one in the women's team pursuit.
Australia beat New Zealand in that final, but Korf is confident the official rulings could not be retrospective.
"We heard nothing after inspections yesterday ... there was no challenge, no nothing yesterday, so that's in the clear. The equipment, tapes, change," he said.
Korf said Wilson-Haffenden had her shoulders taped because of "genuine shoulder discomfort and mobility issues", a common issue given the extreme positions the riders hold in pursuiting.
"Obviously they want to make sure there's nothing unnatural on somebody's body, which can change the shape," Korf said of the official rulings.
"I will start by saying I'm happy there are rules that manage equipment and making sure the aerodynamics, which are really important, are written up and well managed.
"But on subjectives, if there's no measurement, and you can't really look into prior and know what it is or isn't - and then get disqualified for a medal race - that is obviously incredibly frustrating.
"We'll definitely try to learn more around how the assessment is done, so we can learn and mitigate."
Also on day two, all three Australians failed to progress through the first round in the women's sprint.
There was some good news for Australia on day two in the men's 4000m individual pursuit, with Olympic team pursuit gold medallists Oliver Bleddyn and Conor Leahy to ride off for gold.
Teammate James Moriarty will also ride against Matthew Bostock from the Isle Of Man for bronze.
