TIWN
AGARTALA, April 22 (TIWN): Scripting history in the field of gymnast as the first Indian women, Golden girl of Dipa Karmakar along with her coach Bisheshwar Nandi arrived in the state on Friday before getting into the preparations for her finale. Golden girl of Dipa Karmakar along with her coach Bisheshwar Nandi received a warm welcome at Agartala airport for her grand achievement after selecting in the Olympic. To say, Golden girl of Tripura Dipa Karmakar has scripted new dimensions in Indian sporting history after selecting in the Rio Olympics as the first Indian gymnast. Dipa Karmakar has 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 in Rio.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 which is scheduled 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.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.
Since the independence of the country, 11 Indian male gymnasts 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.
Her first vault, the much difficult Produnova, gave Dipa 15.066 points, the highest among the 14 competitors. But a poor show in the uneven bars took her points down as she collected 11.700, the second worse among the 14 participants.
The Tripura girl secured 13.366 and 12.566 points in beam and floor exercises. Deepak Kagra, an international referee, said that after's Dipa's strong performance it was certain that she would qualify for Rio Olympics.
Dipa had created history by becoming the first woman gymnast to win a medal, a bronze in the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014.
The sport of gymnastics has been in turmoil in the country in the last few years with rival factions holding elections and claiming to be the national federation. Even the camp for the gymnasts has been held under the aegis of Sports Authority of India.