The semi-finals of the women’s 50 metres freestyle were held up at the Rio Olympics on Friday night when a bus driver got his venue acronyms wrong.

Britain’s Fran Halsall and two other competitors boarded a bus that was meant to take them from the Athletes’ Village to the swimming pool, only 15 minutes away, but found themselves speeding towards the athletics venue on the other side of the city.

Halsall told BBC Sport that this meant they drove 40 minutes one way, “had a nice tour of the Olympic Stadium”, drove 40 minutes back to the village and then went to the pool for a hasty warm-up and delayed race.

Rio 2016 spokesman Mario Andrada said the problem was caused by “acronym confusion”, as the transport plan refers to the Olympic Aquatics Stadium as OAS and the Olympic Stadium as OLS.

“It was a contingency bus and he was meant to take them to the aquatics but he went to the athletics instead,” said Andrada.

“From now on we will tell them the acronym and just say ‘aquatics’.”

Thankfully, Halsall managed to compose herself and qualified for Saturday’s final by winning her semi-final in a time of 24.41 seconds.

“It hasn’t derailed me,” the 26-year-old from Southport said.

“I’ve done it under the stress, made the final, so less stress tomorrow night, the bus turns up, it will be all good.”