Golden Girls of India – Pride of Nation

To commemorate the outstanding performance of the 3 athletes of India – Dipa Karmakaar, Sakshi Malik and P. V. Sindhu at Rio Olympics 2016, a Special Cover was issued by Jharkhand Postal Circle. India’s female gymnast Dipa Karmakar missed a bronze by 0.15 points but her clean finish in the high-risk Produnova vault won the hearts of a nation. Dipa Karmakar is India’s first female gymnast to qualify for the quadrennial mega event after 52 years from India and the first Indian female gymnast ever to compete in the Olympics. She attained 4th position in Women’s Vault Gymnastics event of Rio Olympics 2016 with an overall score of 15.066. Dipa Karmakar, hailing from Agartala in Tripura started practicing gymnastics when she was 6 years old.

 

Wrestler Sakshi Malik, won the bronze medal in the 58 kg category, becoming the first Indian female wrestler to win a medal at the Olympics and the fourth female Olympic medalist from India. Hailing from Rohtak district in Haryana, took up wrestling in 2002 and since then has won several tournaments including gold medals in national tournaments. She also won Bronze in Asian Championships 2015 and Silver in Commonwealth Games 2014.

 

P. V. Sindhu or Pusarla Venkata Sindhu secured a silver medal after losing to Carolina Marin in the women’s singles final. Sindhu is from Andhra Pradesh was born to volleyball players P. V. Ramana and P. Vijaya in the year 1995. Her father was honoured with Arjuna Award for having displayed excellence in his sport. One of the youngest and talented badminton players of the contemporary times, Sindhu has featured in top 10 in the world badminton rankings for the most part of 2014. She received Arjuna Award in 2013 and Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award of India in 2015. The Government of India has conferred the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award 2016, highest sporting honour of India to the trio.