In cricket-crazy India, gymnastics still has a low profile, but Dipa Karmakar is slowly changing that.
A day after qualifying for the Olympics, Dipa clinched gold in vaults at the test event of the Rio Games on Monday. The Tripura-born gymnast scored 14.833 as her best effort to finish first in the women's vaults finals.
Earlier, the 22-year-old who had flat feet on birth, secured a total score of 52.698 points in the Olympics qualifying event to book a berth for artistic gymnastics in Rio de Janerio.
This is what the international referee Deepak Kanga had to say after her feat:
“No Indian has ever won a gold at a global event earlier and Dipa's gold is the first time this is happening. She has qualified for the Olympics and then has won a gold now. It is fantastic stuff."
Last year, Karmakar excelled with a total of five gold medals for Tripura in the 35th National Games in Kerala. Before that, at the 2014 Asian Games, Karmakar, one of the few practitioners of the difficult Produnova vault, finished fourth in the vault final with a score of 14.200. She is also a bronze medalist at the 2014 Commonwealth Games.
Behind Karmakar's achievement, is a story of guts, hard work, and determination. Her gold medal will certainly act as an inspiration to other girls of the country.
Here’s the video of the effort that got her the Gold:
