Oksana Chusovitina
Uzbekistan’s Chusovitina has by now stolen headlines for her return to the Olympics every four years since 1992. Responsible for introducing the non-layout Rudi vault, Chusovitina has never done any of the round-off, back handspring Yurchenko vaults which score comparatively lower in difficulty as they propel the gymnast to a higher height.
Instead, Chusovitina only does the front handspring (the kind that sets off the Produnova) and Tsukahara vaults.
All of this is to say that her vaults will correspond to the ones that Karmakar will possibly attempt. Her execution score in the prelim rounds, though, does not break into the 9 bracket and puts her total at 14.999 – which is very close to Dipa’s total.
In this hallowed list of vault finalists, Chusovitina is one whom Dipa has most recently beaten. At the Rio test events preceding the Olympics, Dipa won gold and Chusovitina won silver at the vault. It is the video and photographs of this medal ceremony that has been circulating as a misrepresented evidence of Karmakar’s apparent gold win at the Rio Olympics.
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