No one does Produnova better than her

Sabi Hussain

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 18

Dipa Karmakar is creating waves in the gymnastics world with her mastery over the Produnova vault — the extremely difficult routine that involves a front handspring and two front somersaults.

The Produnova is the most dangerous vault with the highest possible difficulty level. It may result in a broken neck or paralyses if not performed with utmost skill and precision. Such is the risk involved that only four other gymnasts in the world have successfully executed the Produnova in competition — Russia’s Yelena Produnova, after whom the routine is named, Dominican Republic’s Yamilet Pena, Egypt’s Fadwa Mahmoud and Uzbekistan’s Oksana Chusovitina. Karmakar, however, uses it quite regularly in top competitions.

The Produnova has difficulty level of seven. Karmakar has achieved the highest score on this vault — 15. 100, 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 it but none managed to match Karmakar’s score. 

Karmakar, the Glasgow CWG bronze medallist, was introduced to Produnova by her two coaches, Bisweswar Nandi and Kalpana Debnath, as late as in April 2014, just three months ahead of the Glasgow CWG. And within three months, she created history by becoming the first Indian woman gymnast to win a medal at the CWG. The 22-year-old then finished a creditable fourth at the Incheon Asian Games. Last year, she achieved another first for Indian gymnastics by progressing to the finals of the World Championships, where she finished a commendable fifth with a final tally of 14.863. On Sunday, she achieved another milestone by qualifying for the Rio Games.