At a time when the entire country celebrated Hima Das’ remarkable feat of becoming the first Indian athlete to win a gold medal at any global event, the Indian Athletics Federation still found a way to point out her flaws.
The 18-year-old won the women’s 400m race at the IAAF World U-20 Championship in Tampere, Finland.
But the federation while congratulating the young athlete for her achievement, pointed out her poor English in a tweet.
“Not so fluent in English but she gave her best there too,” read the tweet, AFI had tweeted congratulating Hima Das.
The tweet however received huge uproar on social media by Netizens, who criticised the federation for pointing out her poor speaking ability at a time of such remarkable achievement.
“She has not come to speak English. We have a lot of good English speakers in the country but very few can run like her,” said an user criticising the tweet.
Following the backlash, AFI was forced to issue an apology on twitter. They eventually tweeted a statement in hindi.
“Apologies to all Indians if we have disappointed you with our tweet. We only wanted to point out that our athlete isn’t afraid of any challenges, on or off the track. Despite coming from a small village, she did not hesitate to speak to the foreign reporters. We once again apologise to people we may have disappointed. Jai Hind!” Read the tweet translated in English.
सभी भारतवासियों से क्षमा अगर हमारी एक TWEET से आप आहत हुए है!असल उद्देश्य यह दर्शाना था कि हमारी धाविका किसी भी कठनाई से नहीं घबराती, मैदान के अंदर या बाहर! छोटे से गाँव से आने के बावजूद, विदेश में अंग्रेजी पत्रकार से बेझिझक बात की! एक बार फिर उनसे क्षमा जो नाराज हैं, जय हिन्द!
— Athletics Federation of India (@afiindia) July 13, 2018
Hima who clocked 51.46 seconds to win the gold, joined an elite company of athletes who have won a medal at the IAAF World U-20 Championship.
The other medal winners are — Seema Punia (bronze in discus in 2002) and Navjeet Kaur Dhillon (bronze in discus in 2014).
She became the first woman to win a gold medal at a world event in any level, youth, junior or senior. Hima is also the first Indian to win a gold-medal in a golbal track event
Also Read: From Dhing to Tampere: The world at Hima Das’ feet
A pre-tournament favourite, Hima was expected to win, given she is the U-20 season leader in the quarter-mile event. But after starting at lane 4 and running behind Romania’s Andrea Miklos and Taylor Manson of USA before the final stretch, a medal looked assured but that was not of gold.
But the teenager from Dhing, a village in Assam’s Nagaon district would rewrite history with a burst of pace, none could match. She had put India on the map of the track event. Miklos eventually took the silver in 52.07 while Taylor Manson of USA was third in 52.28
Also Read: Hima Das wins India’s maiden gold at World U-20 Athletics Championship
“I am very happy to win the gold in the World Junior championships. I want to thank all the Indians back home and also those, who were here cheering me. It was very encouraging to have this kind of support,” she said after her triumph.
“I wanted the Indian national anthem to be played and making that happen made me cry with joy,” she added.