Who forgot Valerie?

From the "Oh shit!" department, Stuff reports:

The New Zealand Olympic Committee has scrambled to fix an embarrassing gaffe which could have stopped defending champion Valerie Adams from competing in the 2012 Olympic Games.

Administrators apparently forgot their star Olympic athlete needed to be registered for the shot put, which begins tonight (NZT), and have been forced into emergency action to make sure she can compete.

The name of Adams, who has dominated her sport for more than two years, was missing from the official start list released today.
To relief of Adams, the NZOC and Kiwi fans, her name has now been added to the field.

"Valerie Adams has been added to the start list of the Olympic shot put competition after an administrative error saw her name missed from the initial line up," NZOC spokesman Ashley Abbot said in a statement.

"The International Association of Athletics Federations have confirmed her name is on the list."

The release also declared Adams was "focused on competition and is ready to go".

However, serious questions remain about how the blunder happened, and, who is responsible - with the NZOC saying they are "committed to finding out exactly what occurred". 

This is a gaffe of Olympian proportions. Valerie Adams is one of the hottest of favourites for gold, having dominated her sport in the last eighteen months after a rocky period when she changed coaches.

All's well that ends well however, and Val Adams will compete tonight, and hopefully win New Zealand's fourth gold medal, and the first one not sitting down! That will take us further ahead of our dear Australian friends, who are mired on just one gold, with opportunities to improve their total running out.

Valerie Adams always competes with attitude. Tonight, she has cause to compete with a little more attitude than usual. Her competitors might not be happy with the NZOC!