Rio Olympics: Gymnast Dipa Karmarkar scripts history, vaults into final

Rio de Janeiro: Dipa Karmakar live up to the pre-competition hype as she vaulted into history and the final of the individual vault finals in her debut Olympic Games after finishing eighth in the qualifying round here. In the process, she earned the distinction of being the first-ever Indian to make the final of a gymnastic event in the Olympic. The girl from Tripura, performed her much-appreciated ‘Produnova’ vault cleanly to secure 14.850 points after two attempts. It was a tension-filled wait for her after that. She had ended sixth after the third of five subdivisions. She slipped to eighth place after Canada’s Shallon Olsen’s terrific effort of 14.950 changed the overall standings. But that was just about enough to secure her a place in the finals scheduled for August 14 as the top-eight made the cut for the medal round. Dipa secured 7.000 on difficulty and 8.1 on execution in her first attempt. Her score for difficulty was a tad lower at 6.000 in the second attempt. She landed low on her Produnova vault in the first attempt, while her second vault was a ‘Tsuk double full twist’ with step to the side. In the other routines, Dipa secured 11.666 for her effort on the uneven bars, scoring low on difficulty but decent on execution. She scored 12.866 for her performance on the balance beam. The floor exercise fetched Dipa a score of 12.033, which also included a 0.300 penalty. She had a poor 47th in the all-round standings with a combined score of 51.665. The eight gymnasts with the highest individual scores in each apparatus move on to compete for an individual event title in that apparatus. The 24 men and 24 women with the highest combined individual totals move on to the all-around finals "Feeling very good. There was so much noise all over the stadium. There is a huge difference between the day I qualified and today. When I qualified here in the test event, the stands were empty. It was a great experience," she said. "I performed what I had learnt, so I am happy. Anything can happen in gymnastics. The girl from Great Britain, who are among the top nations, dropped out due to injury. So we can’t say." “The crowd was so loud that I couldn’t hear the music while performing on the floor. "The judging here is very strict. I understood that getting the scores here is very difficult. To get good scores, you really have to be very impressive. It is very different from Commonwealth Games, World Championships and Asian Games," she said. "People who score 14 in other events, they are scoring just 12. And two points make a lot of difference. In the test event, my average score was 14.7, today my average is 14.850. If my second vault had been better I would have been happier.” She continued, "I would love it if India participates in team event at Tokyo 2020. Now the target will be to get gold in Commonwealth Games and Asian Games. My confidence level is at the pinnacle.” About her showing, she said, "Produnova has made me famous across the world. The three-time world champion Simone Biles (USA) came up to me today and wished me luck. I was over the moon. When an athlete as big as Biles walks up to you, you know you are doing something right. “Media from all over come and talk to me about my Produnova. Gymnasts ask me why did I choose a vault as this difficult and dangerous as Produnova,” she said with a smile.