Dipa Karmakar to return to national gymnastics championships after 2015
Rio Olympian Dipa, who has served a 21-month ban due to doping, will compete in artistic gymnastics. Tokyo Olympian Pranati Nayak will also be in action.
Artistic Gymnastics
Indian gymnast Dipa Karmakar, a Rio 2016 Olympian and Commonwealth Games bronze medallist, is set to compete in the Artistic Gymnastics National Championships 2024 in Bhubaneswar, Odisha from January 2 to 4.
Dipa completed her 21-month suspension for doping in July and topped the selection trials for the Asian Games on her comeback. However, the Indian gymnast was denied a ticket to Hangzhou 2023 as she did not meet the Sports Authority of India's criteria of scoring equivalent or more than the eighth-ranked gymnast in the Asian Games 2018.
Dipa Karmakar will be competing in the national championships for the first time since 2015. Apart from Dipa, the national championships will also feature Tokyo Olympian and two-time Asian championships bronze medallist Pranati Nayak.
Yogeshwar Singh, who won the gold medal at the National Games, will also compete among others. A total of 550 players will be in action at the Gymnastics Centre in the Kalinga Stadium.
The junior national championships will be held from December 28-30 at the same venue.
Dipa Karmakar became the first Indian female gymnast to win a bronze medal at a Commonwealth Games in 2014. The following year, Dipa clinched an unprecedented bronze for India at the Asian championships in Hiroshima, Japan.
At Rio 2016, Dipa became the first female gymnast to represent India at the Olympics. She missed out on an Olympic medal after finishing fourth in the vault gymnastics event.
Multiple injuries derailed Dipa Karmakar’s progress and she failed to make the cut for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. She was banned for a prohibited substance following an out-of-competition test conducted by the International Testing Agency (ITA) in 2021.