Concentration was writ large on her face. She jogged on the spot to warm herself, bent forward, eyes focussed on her goal. The determination seen in them belied the nervousness she perhaps felt. And then, amidst applause, she soared high, executing a faultless Tsukahara — one of gymnastics’ most sophisticated vault routines — which clinched the deal. Last week, 21-year-old Dipa Karmakar became the first woman gymnast and the second Indian to bag a Bronze medal at the sixth Gymnastics Asian Championships in Hiroshima.

Leap of faith

Dipa, who hails from Tripura’s Agartala, did not enter into gymnastics by choice. In fact, it was a sport she had abhorred ever since she was initiated into it by her father, Dulal, a weightlifting coach. She was afraid of falling! However, with the passage of time, not only did she get used to the sport and overcome her apprehensions and dislike, she also began nurturing a burning need to carve a niche for herself. Trained by B.S. Nandi and Kaplana Debnath in Agartala, she improved in leaps and bounds.

Dipa came into the limelight last year at the Commonwealth Games (CWG) held in Glasgow, Scotland and won a Bronze, making it India’s first-ever medal by a woman gymnast in the CWG.
If you are familiar with the nuances of gymnastics, you would know that the word ‘Produnova’ is uttered in tones of reverence. It is the Everest of gymnastics, the avada kedavra of the dark arts. Despite missing out on the gold and silver, it is for her flawless execution of the Produnova — a vault that consists of a front handspring and two front somersaults— that Dipa won her medal.

A high-risk feat, the margin for error while carrying out a Produnova is tiny — one wrong move and you could end up with a broken neck or being paralysed, or worse, dead. But Dipa pulled it off with stunning ease. What’s more, she also has the distinction of being the highest scorer in the world to have conquered the death feat — 15.100, with 7.000 for difficulty, and an 8.100 for execution, with a 0.1 penalty, making her a rare catch in gymnastics. None, except two of her contemporaries, Yamilet Pena of Dominican Republic and Fadwa Mahmoud of Egypt, have attempted the Produnova and neither have a score that is anywhere close to Dipa’s.

She might have narrowly missed her moment of glory in the Asian Games held at Incheon, South Korea last year, but her bronze this time around, has her scaling greater heights.

Keywords: Dipa Karmakar, gymnastics, Commonwealth Games, Produnova, Asian Games, Tsukahara