The Athletics Federation of India apologized on Twitter on Friday, after facing backlash from critics on social media about a tweet posted on Hima Das’s English speaking skills in what was supposed to be a congratulatory tweet. Interestingly the AFI’s tweet in English was also not error free – ‘speaking’ was written as ‘speking’.
This is the tweet posted by AFI apologizing for the derogatory tweet.
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??? ??????????? ?? ????? ??? ????? ?? TWEET ?? ?? ??? ??? ??!??? ???????? ?? ??????? ?? ?? ????? ?????? ???? ?? ????? ?? ???? ??????, ????? ?? ???? ?? ????! ???? ?? ???? ?? ??? ?? ??????, ????? ??? ???????? ??????? ?? ?????? ??? ??! ?? ??? ??? ???? ????? ?? ????? ???, ?? ?????!
— Athletics Federation of India (@afiindia) July 13, 2018
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Das scripted history on Thursday as she clinched the gold medal in the 400m final – at the IAAF World Under-20 Athletic Championships in Tampere, Finland – becoming the first Indian to do so in a track event.
Posting a video of journalists interviewing Hima, who won India’s first gold medal at an international track event, the AFI tweeted, “Not so fluent in English but she gave her best there too.”
The tweet triggered an angry stream of messages. AFI was rightly roasted on Twitter for belittling Hima’s achievement with that ridiculous addition to their congratulatory tweet.
Bombarded by furious messages, the AFI eventually posted two tweets to apologize.
“We apologize to all Indians if they were hurt by one of our tweets. The real intention was to show that our runner is undaunted in any situation – on the field or off it! Despite coming from a small town, she spoke without hesitation to foreign reporters in English! Once again we apologize to those offended, Jai Hindi!” it wrote in Hindi.
The tweet was welcomed by many.