Dipa Karmakar to return at Asian Games selection trials

Indian gymnast Dipa Karmakar will return to action following a 21-month ban for failing dope test when she competes at the Asian Games selection trials in Bhubaneswar on July 11 and 12.

The 29-year-old from Tripura was named in the list of core probables by the Gymnastic Federation of India in May. Dipa’s ban period would be over on July 10. Dipa told PTI over phone that she would be participating in the trials.

Dipa was the first Indian gymnast to win a gold medal at a global event, when she topped the vault event of the Artistic Gymnastics World Challenge Cup in Turkey in 2018. She also won a bronze at Cottbus the same year.

However, injuries affected her career as she underwent a surgery to treat her ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) injury in 2017. “She has been training for the last 2-3 months,” said Dipa’s coach Bishweshwar Nandi, who guided her to an unprecedented fourth-place finish in the Rio Olympics in 2016.