Indian 400m hurdler Harshitha R dreamed of reaching the Asian Games, and on June 26, that dream seemed closer than ever. Running in Lane 8 at the National Inter-State Championships in Bhubaneswar, the 21-year-old was forced to move into an adjacent lane after discovering that the fifth hurdle in her lane was missing. Still, she clocked a personal best of 1:01.03 and finished third. It appeared she had done enough to reach the final, but the officials’ mistake soon changed everything.

Officials discovered that Lane 8 had been set up with only nine hurdles, which made the race invalid. In a standard 400m hurdles race, every athlete must clear 10 hurdles. So, Harshita, in what was her first National Inter-State Championship, was not accepted. Instead, she was asked to return the following morning for a solo rerun and clock under 1:02.00 to qualify.

Had she achieved the mark, she would then have had to compete in the final later the same day, meaning the officiating error could have forced her to run three races. This decision left Harshitha stunned. Sadly, she had no choice but to run.

According to Sportsstar, officials argued that she should have stayed in her lane. “They told me that even if I didn’t have a hurdle in my lane, I was at fault because I crossed lanes. They said I should have continued running in my lane. But all hurdlers have a rhythm. If I missed a hurdle, I would have lost my rhythm,” she said.

For the young athlete whose PB is 1:00.03, the situation was especially painful because the National Inter-State Championships also serve as an important pathway toward the Asian Games, which take place from 19th September to 4th October at the Aichi Prefecture in Japan. Still, she chose to focus on the opportunity in front of her rather than the frustration behind her. “I decided to take it as if I were running a semifinal. I’m looking forward to running in the final,” she said before the rerun.

On the morning of June 27, Harshitha returned to Kalinga Stadium at 9:30 AM. The conditions were tough, with high humidity in the capital city of the state of Odisha and temperatures in the mid-90s. The local government even issued a heat warning on the same day. There were no competitors around her. She was running solely to correct a mistake that had not been hers. And when she crossed the finish line, the clock showed 1:02.54, which sadly was not enough.

Harshitha missed the qualifying mark by 0.54 seconds and was denied a place in the final. But this isn’t the first time such blunders have shaken athletics. In fact, former Olympic champion Jessica Ennis had to go through this exact same ordeal 14 years ago.

Olympic star Jessica Ennis saw her win thrown into doubt

In 2012, at a UK athletics meet in Manchester, London Olympics gold medal winner Jessica Ennis competed in the women’s 100m hurdles and crossed the line in 12.75 seconds to win the race. But her result was later thrown into doubt after officials discovered a major setup error: only nine hurdles had been placed on the track instead of the required ten.

“I can’t believe that. It’s a great event, but that’s a massive, massive mess-up,” Ennis said in an interview at the time. “As an athlete, you expect that everything should be set up properly and there should be no mistakes like that, so I am pretty disappointed with that.”

Event organisers later issued an apology, admitting it was a case of human error and confirming that the hurdles had not been correctly set up for the race. But when the mistake is clearly technical and not the athlete’s fault, the bigger question comes up.

Why should the athlete end up paying the price? And is a rerun really the right solution after someone has already given everything on the track?

According to World Athletics Rule 8, there is no automatic outcome in the scenario. If something goes wrong in a setup, such as a missing hurdle, teams may protest the setup after the race within a time limit. Once this is done, it is up to the referee or jury. They may stand aside the result, cancel it, or rerun it if it is considered unfair, or depending on the situation.

That is why cases like Harshitha’s can result in debate because the final decision is at the discretion of the officials and is not based on a rule for every situation.