Dipa finished 8th in the qualifying round.
AB Wire
Indian gymnast Dipa Karmakar yet again created history by becoming the first Indian to make the cut for the individual vault finals in her debut Olympic Games after finishing 8th in the qualifying round in Rio De Janeiro.
Dipa, Indian’s first woman gymnast to qualify for the Olympics, secured 14.850 points after two attempts by performing her much-appreciated ‘Produnova’ vault.
The girl from Tripura, who is the first Indian woman gymnast to win a Commonwealth Games medal, stood a poor 47th in the all-round standings with a combined score of 51.665. Eventually, she dropped to 8th when Canadian Shallon Olsen’s terrific effort of 14.950 rejigged the overall standings. But that was just enough to secure her a place in the finals scheduled for August 14 as the top-eight made the cut for the medal round.
“As the Produnova vault was the first thing I attempted today and it did not go as expected, it immediately put me in a bad mood,” Karmakar told Reuters after her performance.
“It wasn’t very good. I was hoping for a better score from the first vault and because it was low, I was really disappointed. My landing had been better in training. My hip touched the mat today which wasn’t in the plans,” she added.
Simone Biles, three-time world all-round champion and gold medal favourite, topped the chart with a sensational score of 16.050. The American scored a brilliant 9.700 on execution in both her attempts.
North Korea’s Jong Un Hong was a distant second after securing 15.683 followed by Switzerland’s Giulia Steingruber (15.266).