Heptathlete Jessica Ennis is one of the U.K.'s best hopes for a gold, and perhaps even more important, could be a crossover celebrity. So the Great City Games in Manchester was a chance for England to show off one of its most telegenic Olympians on a made-for-tv course: a hurdles track running right through the center of the city. It looked great, and Ennis won, setting a new personal best.
Her time was thrown out because there weren't enough hurdles on the track. A statement from the event organizers:
"We can confirm that due to human error only nine sets of hurdles rather than the required 10 were put out on track for the women's 100m hurdles event this afternoon. "
Ennis called it a "massive, massive mess-up," and joked that she'll be counting the hurdles in her next race. And I think we can officially add hurdles to the list of sports we only cover when something goes horribly wrong.
[BBC]