Diksha Dagar goes for gold at Brazil Deaflympics after silver in Turkey

By Rahul Banerji

Five years after leaving Turkey with a silver medal at the Deaflympic Games, Indian golfer Diksha Dagar is poised to go one better in Brazil.

On Tuesday at Caxias Do Sui, the 21-year-old outplayed 2017 bronze medallist Andrea Hovstein Hellegjerde of Norway 5&4, translating to an unbridgeable five-shot lead with four holes left in the match.

In the final later on Wednesday, the left-handed Diksha takes on Ashlyn Grace Johnson of the United States who finished in second place behind the Indian in the strokeplay qualifiers.

Diksha has been in ruthless form at the 24^th edition of the Games, topping the qualifiers that determined the matchplay seedings by a massive 14-shot margin.

She finished the two-round preliminary event with cards of 67 and 72. Johnson, her opponent in the matchplay final had rounds of 76 and 77.

Big gap

In the quarter-finals, the first round of the elimination round, Diksha cruised past Amelia Gonzalez Podbicanin of Spain 6&5, underlining the gap between herself and the rest of the field.

At Samsun in 2017 where golf was introduced at the Deaflympics for the first time, Diksha went down in the gold medal round to Yost Kaylin of the United States.

The Indian was seemingly closing in on gold before the American, herself a professional on the Symentra Tour and thereafter on the LPGA, caught up on the kast hole.

The resulting playoff saw Diksha – then an amateur – go down in the first extra hole after having led the match for the first third of the way.

This time, though, she appears determined to bring back the gold medal with strong performances all the way so far.

Twin titles

In the years since Turkey, Diksha – who played the Tokyo Olympics last year alongside Aditi Ashok, has won twice on the Ladies European Tour.

In 2019, she won the South African Women’s Open and then the Aramco Team Series – London last year.

Incidentally, Tvesa Malik will be the lone Indian at the upcoming Aramco Team Series event in Bangkok, Thailand, this week.

Tvesa is paired with Swaziland’s Nobuhle Dlamini and Anais Maggetti of Switzerland in the four-day team event that ends on Sunday.

Meanwhile, in Brazil, India are ninth on the medals table with four golds and two bronze medals so far. Diksha has at the very least added a silver to that tally already.

Also read: Star-struck Diksha Dagar is living her Olympic dream