Catch them young is true for all the sports in general and athletics in particular. Dipa Karmakar scored her highest points tally in the artistic event at Rio to become the first Indian woman Olympics commencing in the first week of August.
Apart from being the first Indian woman, the 22-year-old gymnast will also be the first Indian gymnast qualifying for the quadrennial extravaganza after 52 long years. Since the independence of the country, 11 Indian male gymnast have taken part in the Olympics, two in 1952, three in 1956 and six in 1964 but this will be the first for an Indian woman at the Olympics. The International Federation of Gymnastics has confirmed Dipa’s Rio Games qualification in its official release.
Dipa has been listed as the 79th gymnast among individual qualifiers in the list of women’s artistic gymnast who have qualified for the Rio Olympics. Her first vault, the much difficult Produnova, gave Dipa 15.066 points, the highest among the 14 competitors. But a poor show in the uneven bars took her points down as she collected 11.700, the second worse among the 14 participants. The Tripura girl secured 13.366 and 12.566 points in beam and floor exercises. Dipa had created history by becoming the first woman gymnast to win a bronze medal in the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014. She also became the first Indian woman gymnast to feature in the finals of World Championships in November last year.
Karmakar, who is flat-footed, made her gymnastics debut in 2007, winning that year’s Junior Nationals in Jalpaiguri. In 2011, she won 5 medals at the Senior Nationals, and 3 years later clinched the bronze medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, becoming the first gymnast from India to win a medal at the Games.
Dipa Karmakar was born on 9th August 1993, at Agartala and she represents India at the international circuit. She is also one of the five women that have successfully landed the very difficult Produnova vault in competition, also holding the highest score amongst all in her attempt. She also won a bronze at the Asian Gymnastics Championships and finished fifth at the 2015 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships both a first for her country. These achievements have established her as the most successful gymnast from India despite her young age. In April 2016, she became the first female Indian gymnast ever to secure an Olympic berth by garnering a total score of 52.698 points. Apart from that, she will be the first Indian gymnast to qualify for the Olympics after 52 years. It is indeed a great effort to reach the top in Women’s athletics in India and now touched the world standard.
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