After winning the comeback, Dipa Karmakar faces challenges

Dipa Karmakar is far from returning to Produnova's vault, but the Indian will do one step at a time if Tokyo is its ultimate goal. (Source: File Photo)

The fact that Dipa Karmakar is again in charge of the jump and scored a respectable 8.7 and 8.6 in execution, without penalty points, should bring an almighty relief to those who follow the career of the Indian gymnast. The 24-year-old came back from a long layoff period, where she suffered a knee injury and operation that threatened her career, to start with a gold medal at the jump to Mersin in Turkey, getting a score of 14,150.

The competition was far from the world stage that Dipa had lit up at the Rio Games with its fourth place. But Dipa and coach Bisweshwar Nandi will be happy that the Indian has made the first step towards scaling up.

The reconstruction of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is one of the most difficult procedures, Karmakar must remain his landings after the flight routine with the knee carrying weight. Shooting a Handspring 360 and a Tsukuhara 720 (with respectively one and two rotations in flight for Difficulty Scores 5.4 and 5.6 vaults) to score 14.100 and 14.200, were personally big stops, five weeks before the Asian Games.

Dipa is at some distance to return to the Produnova vault, but the Indian will take a step at a time if Tokyo is his ultimate goal. Asiad is not easy in the best case. But this year she faces the dual task of a modified scoring system and her own gradual return.

With the Produnova on the table, his knee still rusty, Dipa chose two vaults with lower D scores. This automatically removes the advantage that she has always started with. Up to 5.6 and 5.4 (although she can add tricks and twists to these and go up the scores), Dipa will head to Jakarta without the added heel and throws herself into her feet. 39, a vault of high score. The Produnova was downgraded to 6, with effective scores at the board level. So, a 14.150 still places it in the top percentile of jumpers

However, a look at the activity of Asian jumpers will indicate a difficult challenge for Dipa in Jakarta. At the Asian Championships in Bangkok last year, Chinese Liu Jinru won gold with 14,400. Liu reached 14,485 at the Chinese Championships in May 2018. Two North Koreans won the silver and bronze medals of 14,200 at the Asian meeting last May, although Wang Yan and Mao Yi still won 14,300 more points. meets, including the World Championships last year. Liu Jinru leads the global brand of 2017 with 14.625.

She will be wary of the ancient nemesis (also idol) Oksana Chusovitina of Uzbekistan. She will also have an eye on the sensational Japanese who, although they did not win the medal at the jump at the last Asian meeting, record staggering numbers.

Sae Miyakama exploded last year with a vault of 15,050 – and this in the new sober scoring system, which saw a drop in everyone's score. She realized this at the NHK Trophy Tournament, where another Japanese schoolgirl Asuka Teramoto scored 14,900. Teramoto has a mammoth of 15,000 at a meeting between schools in Japan, while Mai Murakami also demolishes 14,800 on the vault.

While the Japanese tend to focus on the team and the medals, Dipa will remember Simone Biles at the final events on the jump apparatus, blazing away at the gold in Rio. A 14.150 is just a very good start and Dipa Karmakar has a big step forward before she returns to the stratosphere of the world vault

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