Deepika? Deepti?; Olympic ambassador Salman Khan forgets gymnast Dipa Karmakar’s name
Dipa Karmakar, India’s first-ever female gymnast to participate in the Olympics, made history on Sunday when she qualified for the vault final. While the whole country celebrated her achievement, one of India’s Olympic goodwill ambassadors, Salman Khan, mentioned her name wrong.
On April 30, Salman Khan had posted a tweet on his official account asking his fans to cheer Indian gymnast Dipa Karmakar. However, three months after his promotion of the Indian Olympic athletes, the Bollywood star has forgotten the gymnast’s name.
Let's cheer our 2016 Olympic stars . Here's Dipa Karmakar #YouMakeUsProud pic.twitter.com/j9f3klnu4S
— Salman Khan (@BeingSalmanKhan) April 30, 2016
"I thought... it was... was it Deepika? I thought she was going to win gold but she came eighth, no?" the actor said while launching the trailer of his brother Sohail's new film Freaky Ali. 'Deepti,' offered a reporter - "Oh yeah, Deepti," agreed Salman, reported NDTV.
Whether the reporter was trolling the actor or not is not known, but the faux pas from Salman Khan would have added more ammunition to people questioning his appointment as an Olympic ambassador.
Dipa Karmakar finished 8th in the qualification round on Monday morning after scoring 14.850 in vault to enter the final stage. Dipa performed the dangerous Produnova in her first attempt, and although her landing was a bit off as she bent low, she was awarded 7.000 on difficulty and 8.1 on execution, taking her score to 15.1. In her second attempt,
Salman Khan’s appointment as India’s Olympic ambassador had created a big controversy back in April with many including legendary sprinter Milkha Singh and wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt speaking against his appointment. After the controversy, the Indian Olympic Association added Abhinav Bindra, Sachin Tendulkar, and AR Rahman as Olympic ambassadors.