Gymnast Dipa Karmakar, who finished fourth in the 2016 Rio Olympics, will miss the Commonwealth Games in April after she opted out of the three-day selection trials that started in New Delhi on Monday.
The only Indian gymnast to win a bronze medal in the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Championships has been out of action since suffering a knee injury which saw her undergo an Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) surgery in April last year.
“She has starting training, but not at full throttle. We don’t want to take a chance at the moment as vaulting is very stressful to the injured knee,” her coach Bishweshwar Nandi told the Hindustan Times.
The Gymnastic Federation has made it clear that this would be the only trials for the Games and the team would be decided by the end of the week. The trials for Rhythmic Gymnastics were held on Monday while the Artistic Gymnastics events would be held on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Karmarkar’s decision to skip the trials and the Games wasn’t really surprising as the 24-year-old got back to full-fledged training only two months ago and had hinted that she may not be ready for the Commonwealth during her interaction with The Field in December.
“I have never said that I will participate in it; Sir (coach Bisweswar Nandi) will decide what to do. But I don’t want to go there for sightseeing. I would want to go to give a good performance there,” she had said then.
It seems, India’s most successful gymnast isn’t yet ready to give her best and would now be targeting the Asian Games, where she missed out on a medal four years ago. The Asian Games will get underway in August.