Thursday, July 19, 2012

US woman who carried Olympic torch in England has tattoo mishap

A woman who got a new tattoo to celebrate her role in the Olympic torch relay was shocked to discover it had been spelt incorrectly. Jerri Peterson, from Atlanta in the US, carried the torch through Derby on 30 June after being nominated by the hotel chain she worked for. Before coming to England she decided to get a tattoo to mark the occasion. It was only hours later she spotted it featured the mis-spelling "Oylmpic".



Mrs Peterson was one of 70 international employees selected by her firm to take part in the relay as a thank you for her years of charity work. She said: "I always wanted to have a tattoo but I never quite felt passionate about any one thing to have it put on my body permanently. So when I was selected for this wonderful honour, I thought 'that's it - I'm ready to have my tattoo'."

She booked a session with a "really good" tattoo artist in her home city of Georgia, and took a friend along for moral support. Initially she was delighted with how it looked and it was only when she sent a photo of the tattoo to a friend that the spelling mistake was pointed out. She said: "I looked at it and I was so disappointed. I called my husband and he giggled a little bit.



"Then I started laughing about it and I've laughed ever since." Mrs Peterson pointed out the mistake to the tattoo artist responsible but declined his offer to correct it. She said: "He felt so bad when he found out. He wanted to fix it but I decided I want to keep it. It's fine. It's the Oy-limpics - it's as unique as I am."

With news video.

3 comments:

Ratz said...

I know someone who wanted something along the lines of "scary man" tattooed in chinese.. what he actually got was "scared man".

andiscandis said...

I worked with a woman who had what she thought was "youth" in Chinese tattooed on her shoulder. In line at an amusement park, an older Chinese lady pointed out that it actually said "childish."

Gareth said...

Not only did they spell Olympic incorrectly, but they appear to have spelled Derby L O N D O N.