NEW DELHI: Dipa Karmakar will become the first Indian woman gymnast to compete in the Olympics after securing a place at this year’s Rio Games during a weekend qualifying event.

The 22-year-old, from India’s remote and neglected state of Tripura, scored a total of 52.698 points in the artistic gymnastics event in Rio on Sunday.

Karmakar, who performs one of the world’s most difficult vaults, secured the historic spot 52 years after India last took part in an Olympics in gymnastics — when six men competed at the 1964 Games.

There was no qualification system in place at that time.

Gymnastics receives little funding in the cricket-mad country, and the 2014 Commonwealth Games bronze medallist has spoken in the past about battling against the odds.

She has told the BBC about initially training in a gym in Tripura that flooded during the annual monsoons, lacked a vault and was home to cockroaches and rats.

But the qualification means Karmakar is entitled to up to three million rupees ($45,000) for training, the Sports Authority of India said in a tweet on Monday.

The International Federation of Gymnastics (Federation Internationale de Gymnastique) confirmed her spot in an official release in which she was listed among the individual qualifiers.

Karmakar is one of only five women in the world to successfully perform the Produnova vault — a front handspring into a double front somersault.

Karmakar finished fifth overall in the vault at the World Gymnastics Championships last October.

India’s social media lit up on Monday with congratulatory messages. Sports Minister Sarbananda Sonowal and cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar were among those leading the praise.

Published in Dawn, April 19th, 2016