Dipa Karmakar became first Indian woman gymnast to qualify for Olympics

Indian artistic gymnast Dipa Karmakar on 17 April 2016 created history by becoming the first Indian woman gymnast to qualify for Olympics.

Karmakar booked a berth for the Rio Games after a strong performance at the final qualifying and test event. She earned 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 in August 2016.

Karmakar 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.

Who is Dipa Karmakar?

• Born on 9 August 1993 in Agartala, Dipa Karmakar came to recognition when she won a bronze medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, held at Glasgow becoming the first Indian female gymnast to do so in the history of the games.

• She is also one of the five women that have successfully landed the very difficult Produnova vault in competition, also holding the highest score amongst all in her attempt. She scored 15.100, which is 7.000 for difficulty, and an 8.100 for execution, with a 0.1 penalty. Only two of her contemporaries have attempted the Produnova: Yamilet Pena of Dominican Republic and Fadwa Mahmoud of Egypt.

• She also won a bronze at the Asian Gymnastics Championships and finished fifth at the 2015 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships, both a first for India. These achievements have established her as the most successful gymnast from India despite her young age.

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