Gymnastics is considered a compulsory sport in several countries. However, it is still considered an uncharted territory in the subcontinent. Dipa Karmakar was the expectation of the nation as India looked to celebrate its 70th Independence Day with her victory in Rio Olympics.
Karmakar, who is the first woman gymnast from India to qualify for the Olympics, didn’t win a medal, but ranked an impressive fourth position and got a lot of applause in the women’s vault finals in Rio de Janeiro.
According to Indian media reports, the 23-year-old finished fourth in the women's vault gymnastics finals, narrowly missing out on India's first medal in this edition of the world games. Karmakar received a final score of 15.066 for executing one of the most dangerous feats in gymnastics.
Karmakar was dangerously close to a medal and was disappointed to miss out on the medal but she has confidence to motivate herself. “I am happy with my performance but I am very disappointed that I missed out on a medal. But at the end, this is a sport, winning and losing is a part of it. I will now focus on Tokyo 2020 Olympics,” she told ANI.
Despite missing out on the medal, she won over a billion hearts from India and Brazil as her fourth place did little to stop the outpouring of support for the athlete on social media.
Dipa can be proud of her performance as she tangled with the world's best on the biggest stage.
Indian Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports Vijay Goel took to Twitter to congratulate the athlete. Other Bollywood celebrities also took to Twitter to send their good wishes to an Indian athlete.
The last time Indians participated in gymnastics at the Olympics was in 1964. Gymnastics does not receive much funding from the government of India. It is not a popular sport in India, which made it rather difficult for Karmakar to train.
Her coach, Bisweshwar Nandi, had to fund his own training facility and could not afford elaborate training equipment. She began her training at the age of six. Karmakar racked up a total of 77 medals in various domestic and international competitions, including a bronze at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Scotland.
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