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Madhura Nagendra, the mystery woman who walked in the Opening Ceremonies, apologizes
The Opening Ceremonies were filled with many weird and wondrous sights (Rowan Atkinson parodying Chariots of Fire! The Queen and James Bond jumping out of a helicopter! An army of Mary Poppinses fighting off Voldemort!), but one of the strangest wasn't director Danny Boyle's idea. It involved a mystery woman dressed in red and blue walking with the yellow-clad Indian team, right next to flagbearer Sushil Kumar. There's been a long international search for the woman, but she's now come forward and identified herself as Madhura Nagendra, a graduate student from Bangalore, India, who had been living in London and was a cast member in the Opening Ceremonies. Here's what she told Indian media outlets:
"In an error of judgment I resulted in walking with the Indian contingent," Nagendra told reporters in Bangalore.
"Of course I have realized my mistake...I have not breached security which was stated earlier in the media. I have not trespassed, I have not gatecrashed.
"I'm part of the casting committee. Yes, I have hurt the sentiment of my people. I understand it was a mistake and I apologize for the same," she added.
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Here are some further comments from Nagendra on how she made her mistake:
"It was chaos," Nagendra said from Bangalore. "A lot of people were around. It was a huge event as we all know. Thousands of people were walking and they were involved and I was blinded. As a result there was an error in judgment, which resulted in this."
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It's a little hard to imagine that a graduate student who must have participated in endless rehearsals for the Opening Ceremony unconsciously wound up marching at the head of the Indian delegation, but that can't be completely ruled out; people sometimes do strange things under pressure, and even more so when the world's watching. Regardless of if her ceremony-crashing was intentional or not, though, her admission at least can make London organizers feel a bit more comfortable; their security wasn't breached, as she was already supposed to be in the stadium and on the field, but just in a different spot. There doesn't seem to be anything sinister here, either; at best, it's an innocent mistake, while at worst, it's just someone looking for publicity. Granted, you'd like to think that a ceremony this intricately organized would be able to prevent this sort of thing, but on the list of possible failures, this is a pretty minor one. At least all of the Brits' smokestacks rose, unlike a certain torch at the last Olympic opening ceremonies...
More London Olympics coverage on Yahoo! Canada Sports:
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