Aug 15, 2016 3:39 pm IST
Dipa Karmakar, India’s first female gymnast to compete at the Olympic Games, came tantalizingly close to winning a medal in Rio on Sunday, but missed out by just 0.15 of a point.
Karmakar finished fourth in the women’s vaults final, scoring total score of 15.066 points.
In her second vault, Karmakar landedthe fearsome “Produnova,” a daring gymnastics element that has been described as a “vault of death.”
The sixth gymnast to perform among the eight finalists, Karmakar was briefly second, then third, in the scores tally until Simone Biles of the U.S. arrived at the arena as the last gymnast and topped the tally, clinching the gold medal.
Maria Paseka of Russia won silver and Switzerland’s Giulia Steingruber won bronze.
A Gymnast's Death-Defying Leap to Success|Watch our interview with Dipa Karmakar, which took place before she headed for Rio.
In the Sunday’s finals, Karmakar left behind the gymnasts from China, North Korea, Uzbekistan and Canada who were all ranked above her in the qualification stage.
After her performance, 23-year-old Karmakar, who overcame flat-footedness as a child to become a gymnast, talked to her parents in the state of Tripura in India’s remote northeastern region.
“Don’t be disappointed; you did well and we are proud of you,” Dulal Karmakar, her father, said he told her over the phone.
Karmakar told her father that she would work to further improve her performance in the next Summer Olympics scheduled to be held in Tokyo in 2020, Mr. Karmakar said in a phone interview Monday.