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The officials committed a big blunder in the National Inter-State Championship being held in Bhubaneswar. They forgot to set a hurdle in the Women’s 400m Hurdle race, which cost the athlete. Tamil Nadu’s R Harshitha had to run alone again in the scorching heat, due to which she missed qualifying for the final. Actually, Harshita had finished third in Heat-1 on Friday (June 26) with a time of 1 minute 01.03 seconds and had also qualified for the finals, but later it was found that in the lane (eight) in which she was running, only 9 hurdles were placed instead of 10 hurdles. The fifth hurdle in the lane was missing.

During the race, when Harshita was crossing the fourth hurdle, she got confused when she did not find the next hurdle in her lane and she crossed the hurdle of the adjacent lane and then returned to her lane and completed the race. The athlete from the seventh lane was far behind, so no collision occurred.

Later officials cited World Athletics Rule 18.7 and asked him to run again alone at 9:30 am on Saturday (June 27). This time her time was 1:02.54, which was slower than before and she was out of the final race. Harshita has expressed disappointment on this. Whereas the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) has shrugged it off by calling it a human error.

Officials misinformed Harshita

Harshita told news agency PTI, ‘I did not see any hurdle after the fourth hurdle in my lane, due to which I was confused. I had to take a decision immediately. So I crossed the hurdle of the other lane and then came back to my lane and completed the race.

Harshita said that after the race the officials told her that she had made a mistake, while she herself did not understand what her mistake was. Harshita said, ‘I am disappointed but what can I do now? I couldn’t qualify. No problem, I will do better in future national level events.

The mistake happened due to a big event – ​​an FAI official

An FAI official acknowledged the mistake, saying that human errors can happen in major events but such mistakes should be avoided. The official said on the condition of anonymity, ‘The men’s hurdle race was held just before the women’s 400 meter hurdle race, after which the height of the hurdles for women was changed. During this process, it is possible that there might have been confusion or carelessness in placing the hurdle in lane eight, due to which this serious error occurred. He said that when this mistake came to light, Harshita was given a chance to run again as per the rules.