Another gaffe from Goel, refers to Sindhu, Sakshi as Rio ‘gold medallists’

New Delhi, August 29 

Union Sports Minister Vijay Goel suffered yet another embarrassment on Sunday when he referred to silver and bronze medallists PV Sindhu and Sakshi Malik, respectively, as “gold medallist” despite the fact that he stayed at Rio with Indian players throughout the Olympics.

#WATCH "Rio Olympics gold medallists PV Sindhu & Sakshi Malik met PM Modi today," says Sports Minister Vijay Goelhttps://t.co/5LiKwExkv7

— ANI (@ANI_news) August 28, 2016

“Today the Khel Ratna awardee, Dhyan Chand awardees, Dronacharya awardees, Tenzing Norgay National Adventure awardees met the Prime Minister. In that we also had two Rio ‘gold medallists' PV Sindhu and Sakshi Malik,” Goel told the media here.

Earlier the Sports Minister had courted controversy in Rio over his run-ins with the organisers. The Rio 2016 Organising Committee had sent a letter to Indian Chef-de-Mission Rakesh Gupta and threatened to cancel his accreditation owing to “aggressive and rude behaviour” by people accompanying him.

He had invited ridicule earlier as well after his gaffes on social media when in a tweet he misspelt the name of Dipa Karmakar as “Dipa Karmanakar” and confused athletes Dutee Chand and Srabani Nanda. In a tweet he sent his best wishes to Nanda but posted a picture of Chand.

Goel said it was just a slip of tongue and an issue should not be made out of it.

“One should not make an issue of it. It was just a slip of tongue, I wanted to say medallist, but ended up saying gold medallist. It happens at times. Who knows, might be with god's grace, we might a bag gold medal in the coming years,” he said. — ANI