A mad day at the taekwondo. It's not often you see sporting history unfolding in front of your eyes.

We've all seen plenty on television, of course, but when I went to the University of Science and Technology in Beijing for the taekwondo on Saturday I had no idea that I would be at the centre of a maelstrom that whirled around the British, the sport and the Olympics.

The story was Sarah Stevenson, a taekwondo fighter from Doncaster who, aged 25, was at her third Olympic Games. Only a taekwondo expert (and I certainly wasn't one) would recall that she finished fourth in Sydney eight years ago and nearly retired from the sport after the Athens Olympics when she lost in the opening round. But back she came for Beijing and was shaping up to be one of our last medal hopes of the Games. Just 24 hours previously, Aaron Cook, her 17-year-old team-mate, had lost out on a bronze medal after some dubious decisions from the judges and referee.

10.45am Stevenson squeezes past Nadin Dawani, of Jordan, in the opening round. We all realise that she must fight better if she is to conquer the home favourite, Chen Zhong, in the afternoon. Chen, the double gold medal-winner, has never lost an Olympic bout in two previous campaigns.

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15.45 Stevenson takes to the mat again to face Chen. In the first of three rounds, it is tense but Stevenson seems to hold her own at 0-0. At the end of the second round, Chen scores a solitary point with a kick to the body. Stevenson responds but, despite holding both hands up to claim her point, it's not given. One down.

Obviously upset, she storms to her chair to rest before the final round. Even across 20 yards of carpet I can hear Nelson Miller, her coach, tell her to calm down. No one else in the arena is calm - the place is going crazy.

Through the majority of the third round Stevenson presses forward looking for a point and finally, with Chen pinned back on the edge of the arena, unleashes her left foot for a two-point head kick. It lands, pushing Chen's head back. The clock runs down to zero. One of the corner judges, Sandra Pena Archniegas, from Colombia, raises her hand to delay the judgment. The five officials confer and the result goes in favour of Chen. Stevenson stumbles off the mat in tears and comes over to me for an interview. “She didn't win, I won; the judges have taken my dreams away,” she said. “My foot hit her face; I felt it.”

16.00 Great Britain launch an official protest against the decision and the jury withdraw behind closed doors to decide.

17.15 The semi-finalists appear: Chen versus Maria Espinoza, of Mexico. An official directs them back into the changing-room. Later I found out that behind the doors to the arena a furious confrontation was going on between the officials and representatives of many teams, including Britain. A sit-in protest was being discussed if the jury didn't recognise the head kick by Stevenson.

17.18 An announcement is made in English through the public address system: “The jury have decided that we have to change the result and declare the British player as winner. Justice is first.” British fans cheer from the stands. Thousands of Chinese are still in the dark.

17.28 Gary Hall, a member of the British Taekwondo control board, comes over to talk. “It's been an emotional hour but credit to the Chinese, they said the decision was wrong,” he said.

17.35 Rumours surface of a protest by China.

17.41 An announcement is made to the arena in Mandarin and is solidly and roundly booed.

17.42 A dozen or so security people file into the spectator stands.

17.43 With less than half an hour's notice, Stevenson walks out for her semi-final against Espinoza. The booing increases. The winner goes through to the gold-medal match, loser to the bronze-medal repechage system. Stevenson goes a point down in the first round and three more in the second. Even more worrying, she appears to have an ankle injury. She gets a kick in at the end of the second round; 4-1. Round three and understandably the Mexican retreats round the mat to run down the clock.

17.58 “My mind wasn't ready, my body wasn't ready,” Stevenson said. “I didn't have any tactics, we had 20 minutes to prepare and I think I've twisted my ankle.”

18.15 Yang Jin Suk, secretary general of the World Taekwondo Federation, starts a press conference. He praises the Chinese for their sportsmanship in agreeing to stand by any decision the jury made. He refused to answer whether they agreed that the kick had landed at all. He declared it a beautiful decision to overturn the bout but refused to elaborate on why the decision by the judges during the contest was wrong.

19.00 Stevenson takes to the mat for the fourth time in the day to fight Noha Abd Rabo, of Egypt, for the bronze. She comprehensively beats her and limps off the mat a medal winner, the first Britain has produced in taekwondo. She is thrilled and wraps herself in the Union Jack.

19.15 We are just packing up when Angel Valodia Matos, of Cuba, is injured during his repechage fight. After the stipulated one-minute injury break he is disqualified and the bronze is awarded to Arman Chilmanov, of Kazakhstan. Infuriated, Matos kicks Chakir Chelbat, the Swedish referee, in the head and punches a judge in the face. My last impression of the taekwondo arena is of Yang facing down the huge Cuban and shouting “out” repeatedly. Matos and his coach are given life bans, Stevenson has a brilliant bronze but Chen, who did nothing wrong, was never to reappear.

The sport needs electronic devices to help the judges, as in fencing, or easier, more frequent point scoring, as in boxing, but the situation can't remain as it is. What I saw on that dramatic afternoon was evidence of a sport in chaos that needs to rally from its most tumultuous day.