Dipa Karmakar Claims Gold in Rio

CHENNAI: A day after creating history by becoming the first Indian woman gymnast to qualify for the Olympics, Dipa Karmakar clinched gold in vaults at the test event of the Rio Games on Monday.

Dipa, who already created history at the Commonwealth Games by winning bronze, scored 14.833 points as her best effort to finish first.

The Tripura girl came up with this effort in the first attempt itself, and scored 14.566 in her second and last tries, respectively. She, however, failed to win a medal at the 2014 Asian Games by a whisker. Her favourite, the two-and-half somersault Produnova, failed her at Incheon, but in Rio, the same routine earned her gold.

Though Dipa started training as a five-year-old, she never liked the sport. Hailing from Agartala, she was initiated into the sport by her father, but cried while attending those drills. Father Dulal Karmakar is a weightlifting coach, but wanted her to be a gymnast. Interestingly, she had a fear of falling.

This gold has nothing to do with her Olympic qualification in the artistic event, which is an all-round competition. Iconic cricketer Sachin Tendulkar praised Dipa for the historic feat. “Congratulations #DipaKarmakar on creating history with your qualification. You inspire young Indians with your achievement. Best wishes,” Tendulkar tweeted.

Gymnastics officials said Dipa’s feat was the first time an Indian woman clinched gold in a global gymnastic competition. On Sunday, the 22-year-old created history with her Rio-berth sealing performance in the final qualifying and test event in Rio de Janeiro.

Riyaz Ahmed, vice-president of Gymnastics Federation of India (GFI) said, “This is a great achievement, and gymnasts will benefit from Dipa’s gold-winning effort. All we want is a foreign coach for Dipa. For her, there was always trouble in landing, and to fix that she needs an expert foreign coach. We’ve got a list of names we’re interested in. Dipa and (Bishweshwar) Nandi, her coach, can work with the foreign coach and iron out whatever flaws she has in landing. For that, we’ll now approach the Sport Ministry. They’ve always been really helpful.”