Dipa Karmakar primes for worlds with Asian Championship bronze

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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.