Accolades poured in for Dipa Karmakar, who today became the first Indian woman gymnast to qualify for the Olympics, with iconic cricketer Sachin Tendulkar and Sports Minister Sarbananda Sonowal leading the sports fraternity in praising here for the historic feat. You inspire young Indians with your achievement. Deepa Karmakar, 22, made this happen when she scored 52.698 in an Olympic qualifying event taking place in Rio, Brazil, making it to the event scheduled to happen later in the year. She has been confirmed as the 79 gymnast among individual qualifiers in the rundown of women’s creative athlete who have now secured a berth for the Rio Olympics. We wish her and her team the best of luck for her preparations because nothing less than a medal will suffice! This is a prestigious accomplishment, as she’ll be the first gymnast to represent Jamaica at the Olympics. Her father, a weightlifting coach, pushed her into gymnastics in a society where even now few girls are encouraged to take up sports as a profession. India’s newest sports sensation started her career in gymnastics when she was barely six years old.
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Cricketing stalwarts Virender Sehwag and VVS Laxman and five-time chess world champion Viswanathan Anand also saluted Dipa. Not only did her flat feet limit her initial physical ability in her sport, but she’s also struggled to get respect from others in her pursuit of gymnastics.
The focus for Ellis and her coach Sam James will now shift to the summer games, where she will join Kieran Behan in flying the flag for Ireland.
Miller’s routine, which included a huge release combo, earned a score of 13.7 from the judges, and could have been higher if not for erring slightly on one of her landings.
She has since won a bronze in the Asian Championship previous year and would be aiming to at least make the finals of the vault event in the Rio Olympics. “Also, complements to Dipa for the gold medal in women’s vaults finals at the test event of the Rio Games #PresidentMukherjee”, the President said in a series of tweets.
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Rio Olympic Arena was a cauldron of contrasting emotions this Sunday (17 April), as thousands of spectators cheered on the Brazilian women’s artistic gymnastics team to first place and Olympic qualification but watched in disbelief as traditional powerhouse Romania crashed out.
