A man has been arrested for shouting abuse and throwing a plastic bottle on to the track just seconds before the start of the Olympic 100m final.
A Dutch judoka who was sitting behind the man said she had tackled him after the incident, but had missed Usain Bolt's 9.63 second Olympic record in the process.
The plastic bottle being hurled on to the track towards the athletes was clearly visible to the hundreds of millions of TV viewers who had tuned in to watch the blue riband event of the Games.
Edith Bosch, who won a bronze medal last week in the 70kg category, had a trackside seat in the second row, but said on Twitter that she attacked the man after he threw the bottle.
"Some drunk in front of me throws a bottle onto the track!! I hit him … Unbelievable," she said, adding the hashtags "angry" and "norespect".
She revealed in her next tweet that she had missed the race in the commotion: "Dammit ... and I missed the 100m! What a BEEP".
Bosch later told NOS TV. "I had seen the man walking around earlier and said to people around me that he was a peculiar bloke. Then he threw that bottle and in my emotion I hit him on the back with the flat of my hand. Then he was scooped up by the security. However, he did make me miss the final, and I am very sad about that. I just cannot understand how someone can do something like that."
A spokeswoman for the London Organising Committee confirmed that a man had been arrested following the incident.
Scotland Yard said a man was arrested "on suspicion of causing a public nuisance".
"The man had been heard to shout abuse and then throw a plastic bottle on to the track immediately prior to the start of the men's 100m final. He remains in custody at an east London police station," said a Metropolitan police spokesman.
"No one was injured during the incident and the event was not interfered with in any way," he added.
Tickets for the 100m final cost up to £725 and 2 million people applied to be in the 80,000 capacity stadium.
Bolt said he was not aware of the incident, but bronze medallist Justin Gatlin said that he sensed the commotion as he settled into his blocks.
"There was a little distraction and I didn't know what it was. You could hear a pin drop," said Gatlin. "You just have to block it out. It was a great race, one in the history books and I'm glad to be a part of it. The crowd were electrifying."
