Dipa falls short, but goes a long way for India

RIO DE JANEIRO: Dipa Karmakar missed a bronze medal by a whisker to finish fourth in the women’s vault final in the Rio Games but still created history by producing

RIO DE JANEIRO: Dipa Karmakar missed a bronze medal by a whisker to finish fourth in the women’s vault final in the Rio Games but still created history by producing the best-ever performance by an Indian gymnast in the Olympics history on Sunday.

HT Image

The 23-year-old Dipa, who had become the first Indian woman gymnast to have qualified for the Olympics, scored an average of 15.066 points, a mere 0.15 less than the eventual bronze winner Giulia Steingruber (15.216) of Switzerland.

The gold went to American pre-event favourite Simone Biles (15.966), adding to the two gold she has already won in team event and all-round in this Olympics.

Reigning vault world champion Maria Paseka of Russia got the silver with an average of 15.253 points.

Dipa, who had scored 14.850 in the qualifying round, could have got more points had she not landed on her haunches in her risky ‘Produnova’ vault for which she is now known all over the world.

Coming in as the sixth competitor in the finals, the Tripura girl went for the ‘Tsukahara’ in her first attempt in which she collected 14.866 points. She went for a difficulty level of 6 and got 8.855 for the execution.

In her ‘Produnova’, Dipa did everything right except that she did not have a perfect landing as her buttocks just touched the mat and thereby she lost points.

She scored 15.266 from her ‘Produnova’ with 8.266 points for execution for a difficulty level of 7. The average of the two attempts gave her 15.066, a mere 0.15 difference with bronze winner Steingruber.

Dipa, however, will hold her head high as she has scripted history by becoming the first India to qualify for the vault finals in her first Olympics.