Dipa Karmakar Wins Gold At Gymnastics World Cup

On Sunday, ace gymnast Dipa Karmakar won gold in the vault event of FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Challenge Cup at Mersin, Turkey. The 24-year-old returned from a long layoff, following a career-threatening knee injury and surgery, to start with a gold medal and claiming the World Challenge Cup title with an average score of 14.150.

In 2016, 24-year-old Karmakar had finished fourth in vault event at the Rio Olympics. This time she topped the vault qualification with 13.4 and went on to improve her performance by a few notches to get 14.15 points and secure the top honour in her pet event.

In her first attempt, Dipa had a difficulty score of 5.400 while collecting 8.700 in execution for a total of 14.100. She improved the score in her second attempt to 14.200 (5.600+8.600), giving her a total average of 14.150 as reported by NDTV.

This is Karmakar’s first medal in a World Challenge Cup. On the same day, she also qualified for balance beam finals by finishing third in the qualification with a score of 11.850.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Dipa Karmakar on twitter for her victory.

India is proud of @DipaKarmakar! Congratulations to her on winning a well-deserved Gold in the vault event at the FIG World Challenge Cup in Mersin, Turkey. This win is a prime example of her tenacity and never-say-die attitude.

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 8, 2018

Dipa Karmakar who hails from Agartala, Tripura was accompanied by her coach Bisheshwar Nandi to the event.

Dipa became the first Indian female gymnast to secure a medal when she won a bronze at the 2014 Commonwealth Games at Glasgow. She followed it up with another bronze at the Asian Championships in Hiroshima.

Rifda Irfanaluthfi of Indonesia bagged the silver with 13.400 points. Goksu Uctas Sanli clinched the bronze with a score of 13.200.

Meanwhile, Rakesh Patra, another gymnast, who has been selected for the Asian games, placed fourth in Roman Rings finals after scoring 13.65. Ibrahim Colak of the host country bagged the gold with a total score of 15.100.

World Challenge Cup series is one of the major competitions in the calendar of International Gymnastics Federation. There are six events in the World Challenge Cup series this year, and this is the fourth leg of the season.

Both Dipa and Rakesh have been included in the 10-member Indian gymnastics team for the upcoming Asian Games.

The Logical Indian congratulates the Indian sportspersons.