Overview
- Harshita ran her heat on Friday evening with the fifth hurdle missing from lane 8, moved briefly into the adjacent lane to clear it, and finished in 1:01.03 which was reported as a personal best and third place.
- After she lodged a protest, the technical committee annulled that heat result and told her to run a solitary re-run the next morning with a 1:02.00 cutoff to be considered for the final.
- In the solo re-run, held with all ten hurdles in place, her official time was 1:02.54, which left her outside the qualifying mark and eliminated her from the final.
- Venue technical staff did not give a public explanation for annulling the heat, the Athletics Federation of India did not comment, and Harshita said officials initially blamed her for crossing lanes.
- The incident undermines her Asian Games selection hopes, exposes a basic equipment and race-management failure at a key selection trial, and left an unresolved discrepancy in reports about her age.