India’s Mystery Woman Apologizes For Crashing Olympic Opening Ceremonies

Madhura Nagendra, also known around the world as the Indian woman who crashed the Olympic opening ceremonies last Friday, has reportedly apologized for her actions, claiming the decision to walk at the front of her country’s delegation was an “error in judgment”. Nagendra explained to Indian’s NDTV that she simply got caught up in all the excitement of the event. The next thing she knew, the woman was walking next to flagbearer Sushil Kumar in front of 40 athletes.

According to Fox Sports, Nagendra’s appearance during the ceremonies irritated quite a few Indian officials, who wanted an explanation of how, precisely, a woman wearing jeans and a red jacket was allowed to walk with the country’s Olympians.

“It was chaos,” Nagendra said of the situation. “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.”

The Associated Press reports that Nagendra was actually a participant in “Slumdog Millionaire” director Danny Boyle’s mass opening ceremonies, working alongside nearly 10,000 individuals who had volunteered their services and talents to bring the production to life. Sebastian Coe, chief organizer for the London games, said the mystery woman posed no threat to the Indian athletes, as she had already been cleared by security.

Still, the backlash Nagendra received for gatecrashing the opening ceremonies has been particularly brutal. The hostility has not been lost on Madhura, who hopes that, in time, people will ultimately forgive her for making such a huge public mistake.

“I’m a proud woman of India with a lot of enthusiasm and with a lot of power,” she explained to the AP. “I was actually taken aback seeing all the comments.”