Dipa Karmakar: First Indian woman gymnast to qualify for Olympics
- Published
Dipa Karmakar has become the first Indian woman gymnast to qualify for the Olympic games.
Karmakar, also a medallist at the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games, qualified for the Rio Olympics in artistic gymnastics on Sunday.
She is one of only five gymnasts to have successfully completed the Produnova, one of the hardest vaults in the discipline.
Indian social media has been filled with posts on her achievement.
Gymnastics does not receive much funding from the government of India, and Karmakar herself comes from humble beginnings.
She earlier told the BBC that when she competed in her first gymnastics competition, she did so without shoes and borrowed an oversized, ill-fitting costume.
Dipa Karmakar had to borrow her first gym costume
Karmakar is India's first gymnast to qualify for the Olympics in 52 years.
Sports minister Sarbananda Sonowal was among those to congratulate the athlete as word spread about her achievement and she began trending on social media.
- Published7 March 2016
