Jakarta: Star Indian gymast Dipa Karmakar today pulled out of the artistic team finals of the ongoing Asian Games here after a career-threatening knee injury flared up again.
“…there was risk of a dangerous injury, so she could not be her best. We will give her rest from the team event but she will definitely do well in (balancing) beam finals,” Dipa’s coach Bisweswar Nandi said.
Asked if competing in beam finals will affect the knee adversely, Nandi said, “No, the landing is not hard on balancing beam.”
A sobbing Dipa blamed it on a jerk felt during the ‘podium practice’ and insisted she will strive to make up for the lost opportunity by shining in the balancing beam finals.
Dipa, who attained global fame attempting the death-defying ‘Produnova’ vault at a stage no less than Olympics for a fourth-place finish in 2016, could not even qualify for her pet event here.
“I felt jerk during podium training. I could not do my best. I had trained hard for this,” Dipa said.
After the high of Rio, Dipa remained out of action due to a knee injury and had made a comeback only recently at the World Challenge Cup in Mersin Turkey, where she won a gold in vault.
It was her first event after undergoing an Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) surgery in Mumbai, last year in July.
She was forced to skip the Commonwealth Games too. Nandi said Dipa was inconsolable after failing to qualify here.
“She said, vault is my identity, what will people say? I told her that it was not her fault but she was very upset. She did not have dinner last night and now she is refusing to breakfast too,” Nandi said.
GOOD SHOW BY ANKITA RAINA
Anikta Raina today confirmed just the third singles medal in women’s tennis for India at the Asian Games as she reached the semifinals after being 1-4 down at one stage.
India’s top-ranked women’s singles player, Anikta breezed past Eudice Chong 6-4 6-1 of Hong Kong in their quarterfinal match. She won the first set in 54 minutes and took only 27 minutes to claim the second set. R
aina came back from behind to take the first set 6-4 against Chong of Hong Kong. Raina was trailing 0-3 and 1-4 at the beginning of the match before staging a comeback. Raina thus assured herself of at least a bronze medal.
ROWERS ENTER FINALS
Indian rowers Rohit Kumar and Bhagwan Singh topped the repechage round in the men’s lightweight double sculls with a timing of 7:12.23 in the Asian Games here today.
They qualified for the main A-final, and will now take a shot at winning a medal. Bhagwan Singh-Rohit Kumar finished top in Heat 1 repechages.
SAD STORY
Indian swimmers Sandeep Sejwal, Sajan Prakash and Avinash Mani topped their respective heats but still failed to qualify for the finals in swimming.