The Produnova girl

Sabi Hussain

Dipa Karmakar comes across as a quiet, shy and soft-spoken person. But when she’s performing on a vault, she’s a changed person, almost a daredevil, full of energy and flirting with danger.

About two years back, Karmakar was an unknown gymnast. Away from the media glare, she used to train in Tripura under her childhood coach Bisbeshwar Nandi. 

Today, though, she’s the toast of the nation. When the 22-year-old qualified for the Rio Olympics, she became the first Indian woman gymnast to do so. Besides, she also became the first Indian gymnast in 52 years to qualify for the Olympics.  And the cherry on the cake is, she stands a good chance to win a medal at Rio. 

And the reason to count her among the medal contenders is her mastery over the ‘Produnova’ vault, which involves a front handspring and two front somersaults. Karmakar has been making waves in the gymnastic world by perfecting the daunting artistic vault, arguably the most dangerous vault in the gymnastic world with the highest possible difficulty level of seven. It may result in broken neck, paralysis or even death if not performed with utmost skill and precision. Such is the risk involved that only four other gymnasts in the world have so far attempted Produnova — Russia’s Yelena Produnova, after whom the jump is named, Dominican Republic’s Yamilet Pena, Egypt’s Fadwa Mahmoud and Uzbekistan’s Oksana Chusovitina.

Karmakar has achieved the highest score on Produnova – 15.100, which is 7.000 for difficulty and 8.100 for execution, with a 0.1 penalty. In recent times, only two of her competitors, Pena and Mahmoud, have attempted the vault but none of them managed to match her scoreline. Most of her contemporaries float between 6.2-6.4 at the difficulty level of seven.

Dipa was introduced to Produnova by her two coaches, Nandi and Kalpana Debnath, in April 2014, just three months before the Glasgow Commonwealth Games. She started practising at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium and, within three months, she created history by becoming the first Indian woman gymnast to win a medal (bronze) at the CWG. She then finished a creditable fourth at the Incheon Asian Games with a final score of 14.200. Last year, she achieved another first for Indian gymnastics by progressing to the finals of the World Artistic Championships, where she finished a commendable fifth with a final tally of 14.863. She also became the first woman gymnast and only the second Indian to win a medal (bronze) at the Asian Championships in Hiroshima.

Her finest hour till date came in April this year when she qualified for Rio in a Test event in Brazil after accumulating a total of 52.698 points from four events in the women’s artistic gymnastics. In the vault, she pocketed 15.066 points – the highest among 14 competitors – which was enough for her to break into the top-30, and into the Olympics. Later, she went on to win gold in the vaults finals with her best effort of 14.833, becoming the first Indian woman to clinch gold in a global gymnastics competition.

While most of the Rio-bound athletes have been practising abroad for Rio, Karmakar chose to make the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium her training base. She has been provided with the latest state-of-the-art equipments by the Sports Authority of India (SAI), especially imported from France, for her training. She is also entitled to Rs 30 lakh from her Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) funding.   

Dipa would be heading to Rio high on confidence as the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) has honoured her with the epithet of ‘Gymnaste de Classe Mondaile’ (World Class Gymnast), besides giving her a letter of distinction and a special badge. She will be looking to script another first by winning the first medal ever in gymnastics for India at the Summer Games.