VFS Global, to which the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) had outsourced the visa procurement work, mistakenly sent the applications to the Chinese Embassy apparently thinking that Chinese Taipei comes under China, according to chief coach J S Bhatia.
The 30 athletes and four officials were to leave for Chinese Taipei yesterday but they had to delay the departure by a day. They will now leave at 1am IST tomorrow.
"Luckily, the Chinese Taipei representative office cleared the visas in quick time. It took just a couple of days. We got the visas today and we are leaving after midnight," he said.
The delayed departure may not be good news for some of the athletes as they are likely to miss their events or may have to take part within hours of their arrival in Taipei City. The events start at 8am at Chinese Taipei local time (5:30am IST) tomorrow.