Olympic debutant Dipa Karmakar became the first Indian gymnast to qualify for the individual vault finals at the Games after clinching the 8th place in the qualifying round. One step closer to opening India’s medal tally.
The other athletes from the India contingent are struggling to fight back at the most prestigious athletic Games in the world, as they failed to match up to the completion posed in the areas of archery, shooting and women’s hockey.
Dipa, who hails from Tripura, is the first Indian woman gymnast to qualify for the Olympics. She was performed her much-appreciated ‘Produnova’ vault cleanly to secure 14.850 points after her second attempt.
On the uneven bars, Dipa secured 11.666, scoring lower on difficulty but a decent point on execution. She later scored 12.866 for her routine on the balance beam.
The floor exercise fetched her a score of 12.033, which also involved a penalty of 0.300.
The 22-year old was anxious when she placed sixth after the three of five sub-divisions. She dropped to the 8th place when Canadaa��s Shallon Olsen’s terrific effort of 14.950 juggled the overall standings. The top-8 gymnasts reached the medal round which is to be held on August 14.
In the shooting range, Heena Sidhu crashed out of Womena��s 10m pistol event on Sunday with a score of 380 to finish 14th. Trap shooters Manavjit Singh Sandhu and Kynan Chenai were placed 17th and 19th respectively in the qualifiers, and failed to make the cut.
The women’s archery team comprising of Laishram Bombayla Devi, Laxmirani Majhi and Deepika Kumari made it to the quarterfinals of the recurve event by trouncing Colombia 5-3.
This is the first time the women archers from India have advanced to round two after their disappointing show in London four years ago, when they were ousted out by Denmark in round one. Bombayla and Deepika were part of the London 2012 team.
The trio then faced Russia who put India on the back foot. The archers had a tremendous comeback after losing the opening set and forced a tiebreaker. The Russian women showed composure, as the Indians lost the plot and ended up on the loosing side 23-25 and were ousted from the Games.
