Process Fun: Miss Universe Canada crowns wrong winner

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Sam Miranda
Sam Miranda
05/31/2013

 

Canada's flagship beauty pageant was in disarray this week after a typo in the tabulation process crowned the wrong winner.

A sultry Denise Garrido was all smiles on Saturday, May 25th when she was given the coveted "Miss Universe Canada" title. However, a third party audit conducted a day later on the Sunday revealed a typo in the form of a faulty decimal place on the judges' handwritten scores, which skewed the computation process.

Garrido suffered the ignominy of having her title rescinded, whilst Riza Santos was declared the legitimate winner. With both contestants boasting voluptuous dark hair, sculpted shoulder lines and crimson lipstick, it was difficult to see why Garrido had been demoted to fourth position.

 

And the winner is....oops!

Despite the embarrassment, Garrido was philosophical in her response, choosing to focus on the positives, "After stepping back and letting it sink in, it's obvious that it actually was a blessing in disguise. If they had not made a mistake, I would've never experienced that moment, something I've always dreamed of. I don't think I would've received as much attention if I won as I did with the error."

Garrido refused to blame Miss Universe Canada: "They were heartbroken about having to put me through it and wanted to be transparent. I wanted to see it, and that's also what made it easier to accept. They weren't hiding anything - it was an honest mistake."

It seems the organisation's honesty has alleviated a PR disaster, with a summer humanitarian trip to Nicaragua featuring Garrido and Santos set to enhance its profile.

It's not the first time the curse of the rogue decimal place has struck. According to slashfood.com, a typo in a Swedish culinary magazine led to the poisioning of four readers. They reported symptoms of dizziness and headaches after following an erroneous recipe for apple cake, which listed 20 nutmeg nuts instead of 2 pinches of nutmeg.


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