India’s artistic gymnast Dipa Karmakar becomes the first ever woman gymnast from India to have qualified for an Olympic Games. The artistic gymnast achieved this feat when she totaled a score of 52.698 points to win a berth into the final of the final qualifying and test event for the Rio 2016 Summer Games. Her qualification for the final meant she also qualified for Rio Games.
Speaking on her performance, her coach Bisweshwar Nandi said “I am satisfied with her performance, and I hope she can qualify. I am told the top 29 girls can qualify, but it depends on a lot of team calculations, so we’ll only know once everyone’s finished.”
Dipa Karmakar is known for giving quite a few first ever recognition to the country as she was also the first ever Indian female gymnast to have won bronze at Commonwealth Games: a feat she achieved at Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. In her kitty, lies the Asian Gymnastics Championships bronze which also happened to be the first ever for India.
Only 11 Indian gymnasts have participated in any Olympic Games post the independence of India out of which 2 did participate in 1952, 3 in 1956 and 6 in 1964. The Tripura based gymnast has just started the proceedings for women gymnastics category for the country.
Speaking about the qualification criteria, International referee Deepak Kagra told, “Dipa is 100 per cent assured of an Olympic berth with this 52.698 score. There are three subdivisions to go but she has already beaten gymnasts from three countries. So she has qualified.”