Star Indian gymast Dipa Karmakar on Wednesday 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 sayij 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.
India gymnasts finish 7th
Forced to compete without Dipa Karmakar, the Indian women's gymnasts finished seventh in the team event final at the Asian Games here on Wednesday.
The Indians slipped down the order quite early in the proceedings. They eventually finished just ahead of hosts Indonesia in the eight-team final with a score of 138.050.
Each team had three gymnasts competing in all the four apparatus — vault, uneven bars, balance beam and floors — with three best scores to be counted. Unlike in the qualification round where four gymnasts competed and three best scores counted, even one bad performance does have impact on the team ranking in the final round.
For India, Aruna Budda Reddy and Pranati Das featured in all four apparatus while Pranati Nayak did in three, leaving the balance beam apparatus slot to Mandira Chowdhury.