Tripura’s girl Dipa bags Commonwealth medal

Young Bengali girl of northeast India’s Tripura state, Dipa Karmarkar, has created history by becoming the first Indian woman and second from India to win a medal in gymnastics at the Commonwealth Games ever.

20-year-old Dipa, born and brought up in capital Agartala, bagged bronze in artistic gymnastics in the women's vault final.

She collected 14.366 points to finish third at the SSE Hydro in Glasgow on Thursday.

The gold went to England's Claudia Fragapane with 14.633 points while Elsabeth Black was second with 14.433 points.

Four years back in Delhi Commonwealth Games, Ashish Kumar became the first Indian gymnast to win a medal at the CWG by winning a silver in vault and bronze in floor events.

Initially Dipa had scored a mere 13.633 points in Vault 1, the lowest out of eight competitors in the final.

But in a remarkable comeback she scored the highest in Vault 2 with 15.100 to bring up her average to 14.366.

Meantime, Dipa’s father Dulal Karmakar, who is posted here as a Weight Lifting coach of Sports Authority of India (SAI) is very excited with her daughter’s achievement.

Dulal Karmakar said: “Our dream has come true and thanks to all her coaches and especially Bisheswar Nandi who trained the India female gymnastic team in the CWG.”

Dipa participated in 10 international tournaments and her first exposure was at London’s World Gymnastic Championship. There she did not get any medal but it is great experience. Now her target is to win medals at other international gymnastic competitions.

"We will prepare her for the Asian Games where competition is much tougher with Chinese, Korean and Japanese gymnasts.”

Dipa will return to India on 3rd August -- and to Tripura in next two to three days.

Tripura was famous for producing gymnasts from the 1970s. Its two gymnasts named Mantu Debnath and Kalpan Debnath have won Arjuna Awards.