English official abuses Indian archery coach

In an unsavoury incident, the Indian archery head coach Limba Ram was on Friday allegedly abused by an English official, who was miffed at his team's loss to India in the final of the women's recurve team event.

Just after the Indian recurve trio of Dola Banerjee, Bombayla Devi Laishram and Deepika Kumari registered a thrilling one-point win over their English opponents to bag the gold, Limba walked over to shake hands with the officials of the English team.

But to the utter shock of the three-time Olympian, an English official allegedly showed him his elbow in a rude gesture and abused him on his face saying "F*** ***"

An unassuming Limba, however, did not lose his cool and chose to ignore the incident.

Talking to PTI, Limba said, "The cheering crowd had made for a vibrant atmosphere and it became all the more exciting after our one point win.

"A person wearing the red English team colours, who was sitting in the officials stand told me to F*** *** when I went to shake hands with him as a post-match gesture. I was shocked, it was really in a bad taste."

But Limba said he failed to identify the person as he had chosen to ignore the one-off incident.

When contacted, Britain's archery team leader Hilda Gibson said that she was unaware of any such incident.

"You must find out whether the person was one among us. If he was not wearing a red jersey, he would not be part of the side. I will speak to the Indian coach about it," Gibson said.

Meanwhile, with security being the top-most priority at the Games, the gold medal-winning Indian side was not allowed to leave the gate to talk to the electronic media.

The mediapersons had to stay outside as the cameras were not allowed inside the Games venue.