Indian gymnast Dipa Karmakar on Monday announced her retirement after a prolonged injury turned out to be a major setback in her career.

Karmakar is an Olympic trailblazer in the discipline as she became the first and only Indian to qualify in the Rio 2016 and its the final event, missing the bronze medal by a whisker. However, the end of her career, was much anticipated following her ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) surgery in 2017.

“Signing off from the mat! Thank you to everyone who has been a part of my journey. Onto the next chapter,” she wrote on social media.

Following her masterful display of the ‘Produnova’ at the Olympic Games, making her the only fifth Indian to land the ”vault of death” to perfection, a bunch of youngsters from the North East were inspired to follow her footsteps.

At a point, nagging injuries, kept her away from participating in major events. She missed the World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany in 2019, missing out on a qualification berth for Tokyo 2020.

The Agartala-based Olympian was always aware that gymnastics is an age-sensitive discipline. But, in 2021, she had dreams of making a comeback by taking inspiration from Uzbekistan’s Oksana Chusovitina, who competed in her seventh Olympic Games in Rio 2016, at the age of 41 years and two months.

The dream of making a comeback was further shattered after the International Testing Agency (ITA) announced, in February 2023, that she tested positive for a banned substance.

She made a comeback in 2024 at the Asian Senior Championships, where she became the first Indian to win a gold in the vault event, marking her last professional event with her focus now shifting towards coaching and mentoring aspiring gymnasts.