India’s Dipa Karmakar has created history by becoming the first ever woman’s gymnast from the country to qualify for an Olympics. She had entered the final at the final Test event at Rio de Janerio on Sunday,thereby increasing her chances of booking a ticket to Rio, which has been confirmed now.
The 22-year-old Tripura-based athlete clocked a total score of 52.698 points ( 15.066 in Produnova, 13.366 and 12.566 in beam and floor exercises and 11.700 in uneven bars) that helped her seal the berth into the final and in turn also qualify for the Games, slated to be held in the same city in August. She finished 42nd at the event in the overall scheme of things.but her Olympic spot was confirmed thanks to the one athlete per nation rule.
In a career that started almost a decade ago, 2007 to be precise, when she won the Junior Nationals that were held in Jalpaiguri, Karmakar has led the way for many a gymnast with some exceptional performances on the global stage.
In 2011, she won 5 medals at the Senior Nationals, and then 3 years later, clinched the bronze medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, with an overall score of 14.366, thereby becoming the first gymnast from India to win a medal at the Games.
A few months later, she missed out on an Asian Games medal by a whisker, finishing 4th at Incheon Asiad with a score of 14.200. She is also only among the three gymnasts in the world to crack the Pradunova vault successfully and last year became the first ever Indian gymnast to qualify for the final of a World Championships, with a score of 14.900.
