Denise Garrido finally fulfilled her dream when she was announced as the new Miss Universe Canada 2013 in a live webcast on Saturday night. But after a full day of attending media interviews and photo shoots, she had to wake up from her dream. It turned out that she was wrongly crowned as the winner because of a typographical error.

The 26-year-old Bradford, Ontario beauty was told the next night that she was being stripped of her newly acquired sash, crown, trophy, and title, although it was no fault of hers. The Beauties of Canada organisation, which selects the representative of Canada to the Miss Universe pageant, then told her the rightful winner is Riza Santos, whose hands Garrido held on stage as they waited with bated breath for the announcement of the winner.

According to The Star, pageant co-director Denis Davila informed Garrido that a "typo" occurred when an employee transferred the judges' handwritten scores into a computer program. So instead of crowning Santos, 26, they crowned Garrido, who actually only finished fourth. The pageant only found out about the error the next day.

"My heart sank," Garrido told the paper.

The usual practice of the organisation for 10 years is to have lawyer Nick Macos of Black Sutherland LLP, who is independent of Miss Canada Universe, to input the results into a computer. But Macos was not available this year so the task was left to an inexperienced pageant employee.

"During the validation of the computerised scoring results (which occurs the following day), a typo was discovered in the top 5 entries, which significantly impacted the final results of the competition. This is the first instance of this type of error in the 11 years that Beauties of Canada (BOC) has produced the Miss Universe Canada pageant," a statement on the Beauties of Canada Web site reads.

"This is an unfortunate circumstance where a human error was made, and in such a situation, as difficult as it is, it is only right to correct the error."

It then lists the new order of winners, with Santos as the new Miss Universe Canada 2013, Siera Bearchell from Moose Jaw, SK as 1st runner-up, Diana Martine from Mississauga, ON as 2nd, Garrido as 3rd, and Michelle McKay Sarnia, ON as the 4th runner-up.

"We would like to offer our sincere apology to Denise Garrido for this human error discovered while validating the results. Miss Garrido's example and grace represents all we look for at Miss Universe Canada. We have no doubt she will continue to succeed in her endeavours and we wish her well. We truly hope she remains a strong part of the Miss Universe Canada Organisation," the statement continued.

Despite her initial embarrassment, Garrido remained strong and poised, however, as she gracefully accepted her lost, calling the blunder a "blessing in disguise."

"I do enjoy speaking to people and inspiring people, inspiring women," she told Garrido, who is now savouring her newfound fame as the beauty queen who was crowned for only 24 hours. "I can tell them. You don't have to be the winner to be a winner."