London: A day after India’s angry protest over an unidentified lady gatecrashing the contingent’s march past at the opening ceremony, London 2012 chief Sebastian Coe said on Sunday that the “mystery woman” was just a cast member of the gala show and there was no security risk to the team.
An angry Indian acting Chef-de-Mission P K Muralidharan Raja had shot off a letter on this embarrassing issue to the Games organisers Saturday night in protest against the incident, even as media reports claimed to have identified the “mystery woman”.
Coe sought to cool down the frayed tempers among the Indians, saying that he would meet with the Indian delegation to discuss the matter.
“She was a cast member who clearly got slightly overexcited. She shouldn’t have been there,” Coe said.
Coe insisted that the unidentified woman posed no danger to the Indian team or the proceedings because, as a cast member for the opening ceremony, she had to go through all the security checks that everyone else does to get into the Olympic Stadium.
“She shouldn’t have been in the opening ceremony. But don’t run away with the idea that she walked in off the street,” he said.
A day after photos of the ‘mystery woman’ appeared in newspapers and went viral on social networking sites, a newspaper claimed to have identified the young lady as Madhura Nagendra, a post-graduate from Bangalore.
The Indians are understandably agitated that a person who was not part of the delegation was allowed to accompany the team and hog the limelight in the process.
“She had no business to walk with the Indian contingent and we are taking up the issue with the organisers. We don’t know who she is and why she was allowed to walk in. It is a shame that she was with the athletes in the march past,” Raja had said on Saturday.
“We were initially told that she would accompany the contingent till the track but she went on to take the entire lap. There was another man also but he stayed back and did not enter the stadium.
“We have taken strong exception to this,” he added.
The lady’s presence had created a flutter on the day of the opening ceremony itself and the Indian mediamen covering the Games had sought clarification
from the team management.
Forty Indian athletes and around 11 officials participated in the parade at the opening ceremony.
Meanwhile, the father of the woman claimed that she was meant to be a dancer in the opening show.
“My daughter Madhura was officially selected for giving a dance performance in the inaugural ceremony by show creator Danny Boyle,” Madhura’s father K Nagendra said in Bangalore. (PTI)