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Dipa Karmakar has seen glory and agony in equal measure in her career but the star Indian gymnast said on Monday that she is not yet ready to shelve her dreams of competing in Paris Olympics, and, perhaps, return with a medal.
Having broken the glass ceiling with a fourth-place finish at the Rio Olympics 2016, Karmakar has since then seen more lows.
Karmakar faced Two ACL surgeries on her knee that mandated ligament transplant and a 21-month ban for failing a dope test.
But now, she is on a comeback path.
“I'm fully fit now. I had taken to (Produnova) vault fully aware of the injuries that I might have to face,” Karmakar said at an event in Kolkata on Monday.
“But I'm giving my 100 percent and doing a lot of hard work under my coach (Bishweshwar Nandi), so that I can overcome this and win one medal, then only I will retire from gymnastics,” she said.
Having missed the World Championships in Belgium in October, Karmakar has a tough road ahead of her to qualify for the Paris Olympics 2024, but she wanted to stay positive and focus on her training.
“To qualify for the Olympics is very tough now. But you never know if they allow one country…I'm keeping my fingers crossed and giving my best at training,” she said.
Karmakar, who last competed at the World Challenge Cup in Hungary in September, is now training in Agartala under Nandi.
Karmakar also saw her name being dropped from the Hangzhou Asian Games squad because she did not fulfil the eligibility criteria.
But she has moved on from that disappointment too.
“If there was a circular, and we knew about that (criteria) of our competition style, it would have been different,” she said of the setback.
“It's part of life. It will be good for the future. Whatever you have thought, something positive must have transpired.
“I don't have any problem with it. For a couple of days, I was down but my coach and parents were there to boost me. It's sport, you lose some and you win some. I just have to give my best,” she signed off.