Dipa Karmakar: 11 things to know about The First Indian Woman Gymnast to Qualify for Olympics

Dipa Karmakar is the first Indian woman gymnast to qualify for an Olympics. The 22 yrs old gymnast DipaKarmakar on Monday 18 April 2016 created history and booked a place for Rio Games after a strong performance at final qualifying and test event.

1. Dipa Karmakar was born on 9th August 1993 in Agartala, Tripura. At the age of six, she started practising gymnastics under veteran Bisbeshwar Nandi.
2. Dipa Karmakar suffered from flat feet when she enrolled into gymnastics. She took lots of hard work to curve the feet.
3. Dipa Karmakar was forced by her father Dulal to take up gymnastics as a career.
4. Dipa won the Junior Nationals that were held in Jalpaiguri at the age of 14.
5. Dipa Karmakar won 77 medals that include 67 gold medals in state, national and international championships.
6. In 2015, Karmakar logged the highest score on a pradunova in the world with a tally of 15.100 that includes 7.00 for difficulty, 8.1 for execution and 0.1 for a penalty. Only two other of her contemporaries have competed in the pradunova: Yamilet Pena of Dominican Republic and Fadva Mahmoud of Egypt.
7. In 2015, Dipa won bronze at Artistic Gymnastics Asian Championships in Japan.
8. Dipa Karmakar is only the second Indian gymnast to have won a Commonwealth medal held in 2014.
9. Dipa came fourth at Asian Games in Incheon with a final score of 14.200.
10. She used to train for a total seven hours a day to prepare for World Championships in 2015.
11. Dipa had no equipment to train over eights months before she claimed bronze in Hiroshima. She just relied on personal training to prepare for 2014 Commonwealth games.