Australia was in the mix to compete for fourth spot in the event as Riley Day handed over to Breen heading onto the home straight at Carrara Stadium.

Instead she hit the deck, falling face forward into the track and immediately fell out of camera view.

The Aussie team of Day, Breen, Maddie Coates and Brianna Beahan could only look on down the track and wonder what might have been as England made it a 4x100m relay double gold moment as they ran clear of Jamaica (silver) and Nigeria (bronze) to set a new English record.

Replays showed Breen’s foot dug into the stadium’s surface as she looked to explode after the changeover.

Instead she fell flat onto the track and stayed down for a number of seconds with her head buried.

It left Channel 7’s Bruce McAvaney and Tamsyn Lewis concerned that Breen had suffered an injury.

“Oh, wow. Melissa is down,” McAvaney said.

“Drama galore. We are used to this in the relay. The Australian women are walking back up the straight now, hopefully we’ll get a look at that in a moment.”

Lewis said Breen had simply stumbled.

“We have some big problems down there,” she said immediately after the race.

“Riley Day went to change and Melissa went to takeoff and hurt herself. She is flat on the track.

“She just stumbled. She has had issues with her nerves. She has to bend down low. It looks like she has stumbled coming out.

“It will be interesting to speak to her, because she has had issues with that leg. Mel has trained here so often, you’d think she would get it right.”

Breen, who appeared calm despite the result, said after the race it was simply a case f bad luck.

“I pushed off and my leg just went,” she told Channel 7.

“We are not coming to the party today. It is the left side we have had issues with for a while.”

Australia was eventually disqualified from the race, having failed to finish after Breen’s collapse.