Dipa was handicapped by flat foot at the start of career

Dipa’s father Dulal Karmakar, a weightlifting coach, said that the condition instead of dampening her spirit made her more resolved and he got her admitted to a gymnasium at Bandhar Ghat in Agartala, where Bisweswar Nandi was the coach.

There a medical test was conducted on her flat foot, which ruled her out of gymnastics, Karmakar said.

“But Nandi, the coach, thought otherwise and said Dipa had enormous talent and he could take care of the condition through exercises,” Karmakar said.

Dipa’s vaulting ambition to make it big in the sport was not helped by the poor infrastructure for gymnastics in the state either coupled with a tenous financial support.

This was corroborated by her now-famous coach Bisweswar Nandi who had said before his departure for Rio that the state had “hardly any facility to master the art of gymnastics”. “Think of a girl who devoted her last 15 years in practicing different exercises and today she is the first female gymnast from India who entered Olympics, Nandi told reporters before leaving for Rio.

Dipa’s success story began in 2002 whe she became the champion in te North-Eeast games at the age of nine. From 2007 onwards she consistently won junior and senior national titles capped by a Bronze medal winning performance in the Commonwealth Games in 2014.

Between 2010 and 2014, Dipa won five National Championships, winning five gold medals each at two national games in Jharkhand and Kerala.