Karmakar finished with 14.725 points on the vault in Hiroshima. (Source: PTI) Karmakar finished with 14.725 points on the vault in Hiroshima. (Source: PTI)

Competing in Hiroshima, Japan at the Asian Championships, India’s ace gymnast Dipa Karmakar first landed a decent Tsukahara — a skill eponymous with one of the country’s greatest athletes, and followed it with a significantly improved Produnova to earn a bronze medal, hotting up the contest that will unfold at Glasgow’s World Championships in three months’ time. With a score of 14.725, Karmakar came up behind Chinese defending champion Yan Wang (14.988 points) and home girl Sae Miyakawa (14.812 points).

The world gymnastics body’s website fig-gymnastics.com made a special mention of Karmakar’s bronze, noting, “Though dominated by Japan and China, the Asian competition did not end without a few surprises. India’s Dipa Karmakar, a Commonwealth Games bronze medallist from 2014, solidified her status as a prospective World finalist on Vault by landing an improved Produnova vault, the hardest currently being done in Women’s Gymnastics. Combined with her full-twisting Tsukahara, the Produnova earned Karmakar another bronze.”

Karmakar has put herself into contention for the October 23-November 1 World Championships, and is garnering plenty of interest as she attempts to compete with the best from around the world relying on her monstrous difficulty levels.

The Tsukahara — or ‘Tsuk’ — is one of gymnastics’ most refined of routines on the vault: half turn off the springboard onto the vault table, then a push backwards, usually into a back salto. The Chinese Wang in fact, put forth one of the stronger performances of the Tsuk winning on the double-twisting Tsukahara. However, 15-year-old Japanese girl Aiko Sugihara underlined why the Vault will continue to evolve and push young gymnasts to take up challenging routines when she pulled off a clean, new double-twisting Yurchenko earlier in the all-around final that she won.

Dipa, a few days shy of 22, looks like she’s recovered from her ankle injury that she sustained right after her historic Commonwealth Games bronze exactly a year ago. It was at Glasgow that Karmakar first gave a glimpse into her intent to try out the Produnova, the highest difficulty vault currently. She would narrowly miss out (14.200) on the Asian Games podium in Incheon, pipped by a seasoned Uzbek. But the Indian is back to winning, even as she returns home to begin her preparations for what will be one of the most important World Championships of her career, back to Glasgow where she first announced her arrival on the international stage.

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