Star India gymnast Dipa Karmakar on Wednesday entered the women's vault final after finishing sixth in the qualifying round of the ongoing FIG Apparatus World Cup, a Paris Olympics qualifying event, in Doha. (More Sports News)
The 30-year-old, who had finished a creditable fourth at the Baku Apparatus World Cup in Azerbaijan last month, scored 12.500 in the first vault and 13.066 in the second vault to total 12.783.
Navas Karla (13.916), Georgieva Valentina (13.316) and An Chang Ok (13.166) took the first three positions in the qualifying round.
The top eight finishers in the qualification round make it to the finals.
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"I am thankful to SAI for sending me. Dipa is sixth now and she will look to do better in the final. She has gone through a lot. It is not easy to compete against world's best after two ACLs (anterior cruciate ligament injury), so we are not thinking too much about Olympic qualification," her long-time coach Bishweshwar Nandi told PTI.
The final is scheduled on Friday.
The other Indian in the fray, Pranati Nayak, however, failed to qualify for the final after finishing 11th in the qualifying round.
Pranati, 29, who had won the bronze medal in vault event at Cairo World Cup this February and also represented India at the Tokyo Olympics, suffered a fall in the second vault to come up with a score of 12.416.
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"She had a bit of ankle swelling but it is mainly the fall in the second vault which affected her," said coach Ashok Kumar Mishra.
Dipa, who battled two knee operations in 2017 and 2019 due to ACL tears and a 21-month suspension due to a doping violation, is unlikely to qualify for the Paris Games in vault as she currently has an Olympics qualification score of 34 and even a gold medal here will only take her score to 64.
"Only two gymnasts in each apparatus will qualify in women's vault from this tournament and Bulgaria's Valentina and Korea's Chang are ahead with 84 and 80 points," Mishra said.
Valentina had won the gold ahead of Chang in the last World Cup in Baku.
Gymnasts earn Olympic ranking points from the Apparatus World Cup series based on how well they do compared to other eligible gymnasts on each apparatus. The highest-ranked eligible gymnast in a final earns 30 ranking points, second highest 25, and so on.
Dipa, who returned after completing the dope ban only last year, didn't participate in the World Cup in Cottbus, Germany (Feb 22-25).
Dipa had finished fifth in Cairo (Feb 15-18) World Cup, where Pranati won a bronze.
The Asian Championship, scheduled to be held in Uzbekistan from May 16 to 19, is the final Olympic qualifier.
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"In Asian Championships, only one girl can qualify and that too in all-round. It will be extremely tough, our girls will have to do well not only in vault but also in other three apparatus," Mishra said.
