Dipa Karmakar, the first Indian to qualify for women’s vault finals at the Olympics has not just created history but is also an inspiration for all Indians who want to achieve success in the field of sports and not necessarily cricket or hockey.
On August 7th, Dipa qualified for the Vault finals at Rio Olympics and became the first ever Indian and also the first ever Indian woman gymnast to reach to the finals at Olympics. But qualifying for finals was probably easier than what she had gone through in the process of reaching till here.
This young girl from Tripura was born with flat feet which is not considered a good sign in gymnastics as it hinders the spring in their jump, but that certainly did not discourage her. She began her training at the age of six. But since gymnastics is not a popular sport in India it was very difficult to raise money for the expensive equipment and advanced training.
For many years, she got her training in a gymnasium that had deplorable condition, the equipment used were made from all the junk material available such as discarded scooter parts and crash mats. That was not it, India’s conservative society also bugged her for spending huge amount of time with a male trainer, Bisweshwar Nandi who used to coach Dipa. In an interview, coach Nandi said “There were so many ridiculous rumors but I knew that if Dipa produced the kind of results I knew she was capable of, that would silence everyone”.
Today Dipa is much appreciated for her Produnova vault which is considered to be highly dangerous vault in women’s gymnastics. In a recent interview Dipa said that she has done about 1000 repetitions of the vault and now it’s the easiest for her. Apart from Dipa there are only 4 other gymnasts who are able to pull it off well. In recent times, many others are trying to do it as it has a difficulty level of 7 where as other tricks have a difficulty level 5, and which is why those who perform Produnova get more points.
We wish Dipa Karmakar all the very best for the finals to be held on August 14.
