Indian athlete Harshitha R reruns 400m hurdles heat alone after disqualification

A rising Indian athletics star missed out on a place in the final of an Asian Games qualifier after rerunning her heat alone, following her disqualification when event officials omitted a hurdle in her lane.

On Saturday morning, after all the other events at the Inter-State Championships at Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar had concluded, Tamil Nadu’s Harshitha R took to the track alone for a re-run of her 400-metre hurdles heat.

This meant she had to run her third race in less than 48 hours. Battling fatigue and deprived of the competitive rhythm and pacing of other athletes, the 18-year-old clocked one minute 2.54 seconds, just missing the qualification cut-off of 1:02.00.

The previous evening, during the first heat of the event, Harshitha had delivered a strong performance from lane eight, clocking a personal-best 1:01.03. That time would have placed her third in the heat and comfortably secured her spot in the final, which served as a qualifier for September’s Asian Games in Japan.

However, officials soon disqualified her after it was discovered she had crossed into the adjacent lane to clear a hurdle, though leaked footage of the incident quickly sparked widespread debate online.

After clearing the fourth hurdle, Harshitha was met with an open track where the next barrier should have been. Confused, she crossed into lane seven to clear its hurdle before returning to lane eight to finish the race.