Rio Olympics: Dipa Karmarkar corners glory despite finishing fourth

Rio de Janeiro: Diminutive Dipa Karmakar did India proud in the Olympics. She did not win the medal but she scripted history in Indian gymnastics, as she produced her best performance by finishing fourth in the vault in the individual apparatus final of the Olympic Gymnastics competition here. In a star-studded field, the pint sized Dipa stood tall as she came after the three medal winners: Olympics' all-round individual champion Simone Biles of the USA (15.966), Maria Paseka of Russia (15.253), and Giulia Steinbruger of Switzerland (15.216). It was no mean achievement for Dipa, and her coach Bishweshwar Nandi had refused to train abroad after the Tripura girl qualified for the Olympics in this very city saying, “She qualified after training in India so what is the need of going abroad now.” This was unlike other qualified players and coaches who made bee line to go abroad at governments expense and came up with shoddy performance. The 2014 Commonwealth Games bronze medallist and fifth-placed in the world championships last year was happy with her show, “The three medal winners were better than me. I enjoyed myself and did both my vaults as well as I could. But, then she promised, "I will definitely go for a medal in 2020. I am very happy with my first Olympics." The Indian had finished eighth in her qualification round but this evening she took a giant leap as she came up with a superb score of 15.066, her best scores of the competition so far, in her two vaults. She was sixth of the eight gymnasts in the final and came close to win a medal. She was chasing Swiss Guilia Steinbruger's 15.216  and first produced a clean Tsukahara 720, which earned her a total of 14.866 . The Produnova was her second and final vault and here she earned herself 8.266 for execution, with a total of 15.266. It left her with a total score of 15.066, just 0.15 points behind Steinbruger. Even Simone Biles lavished praise on the Indian. "The vault she does is amazing and I will never try those vaults. It's crazy but it's amazing how she pulled it off. She has improved a lot. I remember I was impressed the first time I saw her. Her progress over the years is absolutely amazing."