It was an eventful 24 hours for Belgian photographer Niki Colemont, who on Monday was announced as the winner of the National Geographic photo contest with his photo of a squirrel. Then, inexplicably, National Geographic reported that they had made a mistake.
On Monday, the Diepenbeek- based photographer believed he had been declared the winner of the audience award at the reputed National Geographic photo contest and was understandably happy with his achievement.
However, the day after the announcement, National Geographic reported that he had not actually won the contest after all, to which the photographer reacted with disappointment.
As a solution to this embarrassing gaffe, the organisation acknowledged its mistake. Furthermore, with the margin between the votes for both photographs was very small, the organisation decided to exceptionally declare two winners this year.
Today, he shares the title with Dutch photographer Karsten Russ and his photo of a seagull. National Geographic had communicated their erroneous communication and finally decided to declare both as winners.
And so, the winners of this year's National Geographic photo contest in the animal section are Niki Colemont with his picture of a squirrel and Dutch Karsten Russ with a picture of a seagull.
National Geographic did not wish to comment.
