Artistic gymnast Dipa Karmakar will be representing India at the Vault final of the Rio Olympics on Sunday. Standing beside her and competing with her for medals will be seven other best gymnasts in the world. However, Dipa’s position in this line of talented physics-defying individuals needs to be put in perspective.
Dipa’s competitors hail from countries which have a strong tradition in gymnastics, both in terms of genetics as well as coaching structure and infrastructure. For example, the USA won their first Olympics medal in artistic gymnastics in 1948, and have had representatives on the podium every Olympics since 1984 Los Angeles. As for Dipa’s country, the first time a medal was won by an Indian in artistic gymnastics was in 2010 – by the pathbreaking braveheart Ashish Kumar.
The country has pinned their medal hopes on Dipa Karmakar, but there is still a distinct lack of information about the path taken by her to reach this stage. Ashish Kumar, who has seen Dipa Karmakar’s career from her earliest days, and who was part of the preparatory camp for gymnasts before Rio 2016, spoke to Sportskeeda exclusively, discussing the possibilities of a historic first Olympic medal for India and the state of the sport in the country.
Ashish says, “Gymnastics is such a sport in which nothing can be predicted. It all depends on how a particular routine is executed on a particular day. It depends very much on the mental space of the gymnast at that particular time. If Dipa can keep her head clear on the big day, and focus just on the routines she has worked on her entire life, she can surely win gold.”
Six years after opening up new possibilities for the sport in the country, Ashish Kumar is still in the thick of things. He was one of five gymnasts training at a preparatory camp at the IGI Stadium before the Olympics, also involving Dipa Karmakar. On asked if Dipa had changed from when he had first met her in 2010, Ashish replies in the negative.
He stresses on how a gymnast’s career is centred around the perfection of a single six-second routine. He also speaks of a dream of seeing a whole Indian team qualifying for the Olympics one day. When Simone Biles wins gold for USA, her whole team gathers around her. Dipa’s only support system at the Games village consists of her coach Bishweshwar Nandi and her roommate, weightlifter Mirabai Chanu.
“Dipa was practising the Vault in the preparatory camp. She has been doing it for a long time. It will be great if one day everything falls into place and a whole Indian team can qualify for events like the Olympics,” says Ashish.
Medal trajectory shows Indian gymnastics is moving forward rapidly: Ashish Kumar
After Ashish Kumar had won silver at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Vault as a 20-year-old, it had been thought that it was him who had been marked to be destiny’s child in terms of Indian gymnastics. However, just as his career looked set to spark off, a combination of circumstances foiled his efforts.
Ashish said, “Gymnasts usually specialise in one or two apparatus. They continue to practice their routines on these apparatus their entire lives. Both Dipa and I have made the Vault our own. But she’s the one going to be representing India at the final of the Olympics.”
Ashish had missed out on qualifying for the 2012 Olympics by the skin of his teeth. He had complained then of the sports federation in the country not doing enough to get him a wildcard, but the sad state of gymnastics administration in the country was only about to be laid bare over the next few years. He waves away any suggestion of there being any envy and sadness in him as he sees Dipa Karmakar etching Olympics history and not him.
“I never could make the Olympics mark, but I am still hopeful of doing well at the 2018 Commonwealth Games and Asian Games. It gives me great happiness and pride to see Dipa qualifying for the final of an Olympics and to have so many people take attention of her and our sport. What other emotion could I have? Have toiled for many years at gymnastics, so these are sweet returns.”
The main problem with the Gymnastics Federation in the country is that it is divided into two factions. After Dipa shot to recognition with her Produnova in the 2014 Commonwealth Games, both factions of the federation invited her, to two different national competitions. Instead of backing her, they were playing tug-of-war with her. Ashish Kumar insists that the administration could be better, but that he has not faced such issues himself.
“I am just a player, and I honestly do not know what is going wrong with the Gymnastics Federation of India. All I know is that there are two factions. As for Sports Authority of India (SAI) and the Sports Ministry, I have only thanks to give for continuing to support me.
“There is a lot of positive direction taken by the sport of gymnastics in the country. Looking at the medal winning trajectory of Indian gymnasts, we have only been moving forward. We first won a medal at an international event in 2010. Within six years, our first representative has qualified for the final of an Olympics. Would love to see more and more young people taking up gymnastics as a sport.”
Both Dipa and her coach Nandi have said before that it was Ashish Kumar’s feat in 2010 that made them dream. The seeds of that dream have now been sown. An Olympic gold medal in gymnastics is not only a realistic possibility now, it is no near that it can be smelled. As India awakes to the dawn of a 70th Independence Day on Sunday, will she wake up to a gold medal in Vault?
