For the past week, Indian gymnast Dipa Karmakar has been training at the Rio Olympic Arena, attempting to perfect the Produnova vault. The 22-year old lander her first one after three attempts at it today. Her coach Bisheshwar Nandi confirmed to Sportskeeda, that she pulled off a rather shaky and low attempt, but did eventually land on both her feet. The muscle aided acrobat is scheduled to represent India in the vault competition on August 14, in front of a sold-out crowd in Rio.
Nandi said, “Yes, she did land the Produnova today, we were planning on doing several executions today, but she landed it in the first attempt itself. The vault was rather low and the execution wouldn’t get an exact 7.0 scoring, because she had to get down on her knees to land on her feet. However, we will be working harder on perfecting it in the coming days. Execution of this particular move has been a problem for Dipa as it would be for anyone else, but she’s slowly getting comfortable with it, and I’m sure we can land a higher difficulty on August 14.”
Dipa’s Olympic qualification was a topic of much nationalistic fervour. The entire nation united in celebrating her Produnova, which has been executed by only three gymnasts prior to her first one in Glasgow. She is currently undergoing specific training, something that coach Nandi didn’t want to divulge. He added, “I can’t exactly tell you what she’s working on. But her training regime includes a variety of things including generic stretching and cardio, as that builds to the Produnova. Let’s not discuss the risks involved in the Produnova, if she wins we will all forget about it and that’s the goal.”
She has also been working on several cool down exercises in the Olympic village’s swimming pool area. Nandi added, “Once I came down to Rio, I first looked for the pool area as that is the an integral part of our training circuit. It took us a couple of days to settle, but now we are in full flow.”
Over the past month Dipa has self admittedly done 1000 repetitions of the Produnova vault and stated that it’s the easiest move for her to perform now. She said, “I’m under no pressure, the Produnova is something I’ve attempted almost 1000 times in the last six months. I will be giving my 100 % to win a medal and make the Produnova a staple in Indian gymnastics.”
