Rio Olympics 2016
Rio Olympics 2016: Dipa Karmakar first Indian gymnast to seal Olympic berth
Dipa Karmakar on Monday created history by becoming the first Indian
woman gymnast to qualify for Olympics as she booked a berth for the Rio
Games after a strong performance at the final qualifying and test event.
The 22-year-old garnered a total score of 52.698 points in the Olympics
qualifying event to book a berth for artistic gymnastics in Rio Games to
be held here in August.
Apart from being the first Indian woman, she will also be an 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 (Federation Internationale de
Gymnastique) has confirmed Dipa’s Rio Games qualification in its
official release.
“Following the Women’s Qualification Competition at the Gymnastics Test
Event in Rio, the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) herewith
confirms the list of nations and individual gymnasts that have qualified
for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games,” the world body said in its 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.
Perfect Landing
(A profile of Dipa Karmakar by Madhuvanthi S. Krishnan, from August 2015)
Concentration was writ large on her face. She jogged on the spot to warm
herself, bent forward, eyes focussed on her goal. The determination
seen in them belied the nervousness she perhaps felt. And then, amidst
applause, she soared high, executing a faultless Tsukahara — one of
gymnastics’ most sophisticated vault routines — which clinched the deal.
Last week, 21-year-old Dipa Karmakar became the first woman gymnast and
the second Indian to bag a Bronze medal at the sixth Gymnastics Asian
Championships in Hiroshima.
Dipa, who hails from Tripura’s Agartala, did not enter into gymnastics
by choice. In fact, it was a sport she had abhorred ever since she was
initiated into it by her father, Dulal, a weightlifting coach. She was
afraid of falling! However, with the passage of time, not only did she
get used to the sport and overcome her apprehensions and dislike, she
also began nurturing a burning need to carve a niche for herself.
Trained by B.S. Nandi and Kaplana Debnath in Agartala, she improved in
leaps and bounds.
Dipa came into the limelight last year at the Commonwealth Games (CWG)
held in Glasgow, Scotland and won a Bronze, making it India’s first-ever
medal by a woman gymnast in the CWG.
If you are familiar with the nuances of gymnastics, you would know that
the word ‘Produnova’ is uttered in tones of reverence. It is the Everest
of gymnastics, theavada kedavra of the dark arts.
Despite
missing out on the gold and silver, it is for her flawless execution of
the Produnova — a vault that consists of a front handspring and two
front somersaults — that Dipa won her medal.
A high-risk feat, the margin for error while carrying out a Produnova is
tiny — one wrong move and you could end up with a broken neck or being
paralysed, or worse, dead. But Dipa pulled it off with stunning ease.
What’s more, she also has the distinction of being the highest scorer in
the world to have conquered the death feat — 15.100, with 7.000 for
difficulty, and an 8.100 for execution, with a 0.1 penalty, making her a
rare catch in gymnastics. None, except two of her contemporaries,
Yamilet Pena of Dominican Republic and Fadwa Mahmoud of Egypt, have
attempted the Produnova and neither have a score that is anywhere close
to Dipa’s.
She might have narrowly missed her moment of glory in the Asian Games
held at Incheon, South Korea last year, but her bronze this time around,
has her scaling greater heights.
Rio Olympics 2016
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