10 women who have done India proud in the sporting arena

Dipika Karmakar

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Artistic gymnast Dipa Karmakar recently qualified for the Olympic Games in Rio 2016 at a qualification event held in the same city earlier this month. The 22-year-old also won gold at the vault later that same day.

That qualification was not just momentous for Karmakar, but for the whole nation – she became the first Indian female gymnast to qualify for the Olympics.

Tripura native Karmakar, who was born with flat feet, was born into a family fond of sports. Led by her weightlifting coach father, Karmakar was referred at nine-years-old to her current coach, BS Nandi, who worked intensely to help the youngster overcome the flat-footedness that had plagued her gymnastics.

Karmakar is one of only five gymnasts in the world to have landed the extremely difficult Produnova vault – and also has the highest score of all of them. She has already set a number of records for the country, winning bronze at the Asian Gymnastics Championships last year and ending up with a strong fifth-place finish at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships – each of those achievements was a national first.

Those achievements came on the heels of a bronze medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, and her gymnastics career has only gained momentum since.

The first Indian gymnast at the Olympics in 52 years and the first ever woman to qualify, Karmakar will hope to repeat those successes in Rio de Janeiro this August.