London 2012 Olympics: I’m sorry, says mystery woman in opening parade

Madhura Nagendra said she was a cast member in the ceremony who got swept up in the excitement and ended up somehow marching in jeans and a red jacket alongside Indian flag-bearer Sushil Kumar at the head of the delegation of 40 athletes.

“It was chaos,” Ms 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.”

Her Olympic cameo infuriated Indian officials, who demanded an explanation of how she was allowed into the parade of athletes.

London organizing chief Lord Coe insisted she had posed no security threat as she had been screened as a participant in the ceremony. About 10,000 volunteers performed alongside professional musicians, actors and dancers in director Danny Boyle’s extravaganza.

Ms Nagendra, a graduate student who had been living in London, said she regretted her actions. She said she had been stung by all the criticism and hoped she would eventually be forgiven. “I’m a proud woman of India with a lot of enthusiasm and with a lot of power,” she said. “I was actually taken aback seeing all the comments.”