Dipa Karmakar will not be competing in the Asian Games 2018 women’s artistic gymnastics final after injuring her right knee during qualification on Tuesday.
The injury happened while landing during a practice session ahead of her participation in the women’s qualification for team and apparatus finals on Tuesday.
A sobbing Dipa blamed it on a jerk felt during the ‘podium practice’ and insisted she will strive to make up for the lost opportunity by shining in the balancing beam finals.
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“...there was risk of a dangerous injury, so she could not be her best. We will give her rest from the team event but she will definitely do well in (balancing) beam finals,” Dipa’s coach Bisweswar Nandi told PTI.
Dipa Karmakar failed to qualify for finals of her pet vault event but made the balance beam finals with a seventh place in the qualifying round. Dipa, who had narrowly missed a bronze in the vault final in the 2016 Rio Olympics, finished eighth in her pet event’s qualification round with a score of 13.225.
She could not qualify in the vault final as her two compatriots Pranati Nayak (13.425) and Aruna Budda Reddy (13.350) finished above her at sixth and seventh respectively.
{{/usCountry}}She could not qualify in the vault final as her two compatriots Pranati Nayak (13.425) and Aruna Budda Reddy (13.350) finished above her at sixth and seventh respectively.
{{/usCountry}}“She said, vault is my identity, what will people say? I told her that it was not her fault but she was very upset. She did not have dinner last night and now she is refusing to breakfast too,” Nandi said.
Explaining how the injury flared up, Nandi said, “On Monday she started feeling a jerk in her knee while landing. The surface here is hard and the one in Delhi was soft (foam) which would absorb the jerk.
“We consulted the IOA doctor here and he advised that she should not push, otherwise it will aggravate.”
(With inputs from PTI)