Ashish bhaiya deservedly took the spotlight with his two medals, one of them a silver in the men’s vault. In the euphoria post that podium finish, not too many paid attention to another finalist in the vault competition. I too had reached the final in Delhi. But we are a culture that celebrates only winners so I am not surprised that it is not remembered.
Now in international competitions for women’s artistic gymnastics, the sequence is like this—vault, uneven bars, beam, and floor exercises. This is how every gymnast has to perform in artistic gymnastics. In India too, we follow the same sequence in every competition. In the 2010 CWG, we were performing in front of the home crowd. But I did not feel the pressure of the crowd as such. I remember that when my turn came for the vault routine, I was not happy with the alignment. I had to put a lot of effort to keep the apparatus in alignment with my view and the run-up area. I had to make a few adjustments. In the vault, the rule is to perform one forward and one backward vault. My first vault was a ‘Forward Handspring Straight Body Somersault’. In the final I ran well, my flight was nice, but while landing my left hand touched the ground. I lost my balance, lost a point in penalty, and missed the medal. For the backward movement, I had to perform the ‘Tsukahara Straight Body Vault’ as decided. This time there was no mistake but overall I lost a chance to become a medallist in the Delhi CWG 2010.
I still feel had Nandi sir been allowed to be with me in the competition arena I would have surely got a medal like Ashish bhaiya. The pain of missing out on a medal cannot be explained and I cried many times. It is natural for sportspersons to cry. We build ourselves up for months, hoping to attain peak performance at a certain time. When all that amounts to nothing you feel empty, there is a void. You want to move on but you just can’t.
Defeats and setbacks also make you tougher. In 2010, the boys and many others in my team jeered at me. I heard one male gymnast taunting, “Ye bhains hai aur iska coach gadha” (She is a buffalo and her coach a donkey). Hurtful comments and taunts became a routine. But I smartened under their jabs. I often voiced my resolve to Nandi sir. “Sir, I have to win in the next Commonwealth Games in 2014.” It was almost a prayerful cry. The target was set. The target was a medal at the Glasgow Games four years from then on. It was uncharted territory, no Indian female gymnast had won a medal at multi-discipline games, but I needed to win. I needed to prove myself—that stubborn streak in me had taken over.
I was determined to perform in the 2014 CWG but did not know how, except to train myself under Nandi sir’s guidance. I was more than willing to put any amount of hard work towards the target. Nandi sir, in fact, had already drawn a blueprint of my career that he revealed gradually. But he could prognosticate the future of my career because of my strong will and ability to work hard. He knew that I would do more than he wanted me to do.
Like me Nandi sir too was very inspired by Abhinav Bindra’s gold at the Beijing Olympics. He wanted to see me at that stage, have the Olympian tag next to my name. That was his dream. In fact, in India, every player cherishes the dream of competing at the Olympic Games. Nandi sir would often say, “Dipa, you can become the first girl and the only one so far to reach the Olympics.”
The dejection of the miss at the Delhi Games was my motivation. Try as hard as I could, I could not forget the taunts that had been directed towards me. Sport though gives you many opportunities to redeem yourself. And within a year the smirk had been wiped off the faces of those who had questioned my ability. In the 2011 National Games held in Ranchi in Jharkhand, I won five gold medals in the all-round and all other four events: vault, uneven bars, beam, and floor. I was the best in the country, but instead of gloating and rubbing it in I knew deep within that there was still a massive gap between the top-class international gymnasts and me.
An example of that came soon enough. I missed qualifying for the 2012 London Olympics. At that time I was not ready to perform at the international level. We as a team had miles to go. But those Olympics once again shattered stereotypes like the one in Beijing four years ago.
The London Olympics’ medals of Saina Nehwal and Mary Kom gave a boost to women power in sports. The whole country was inspired, and this feat certainly had an impact in the Indian gymnastics circuit as well. The record six Indian medallists in the London Olympics were celebrated all over the country. They became the topic of discussion in every single home in the country. I am sure that their success was celebrated across the country, irrespective of class, caste, religion, or wealth. They became the pride of the nation.
Seeing the icons of Indian sport on the Olympic podium kept me on course for my dream as well. The burning ambition of winning at the 2014 Commonwealth Games drove us on. Before the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games, Nandi sir used to watch a lot of gymnastics events on YouTube. I was strong in vault and Nandi sir would always plan for better combinations of vault exercises for me. In the 2010 CWG, my frontal vault, the Forward Handspring Straight Body Somersault, considered to be a difficult vault, only had a maximum of five difficulty points. That implied that even a small mistake in the execution would ensure that I would be out of the podium in the tournament.
At that point of time, the Produnova was the vault with highest difficulty, with seven points. The Produnova move consists of a front handspring off the vault, followed by two-and-a-half somersaults. Nandi sir saw it many times on YouTube, and we would later watch the move being performed by select few gymnasts. He was convinced that this could be the only route for me through which I could make a mark in the gymnastics world. It was the X-factor that I needed. One day in the stadium itself he asked me, “Dipa, will you do the Produnova in the next Commonwealth Games?” There were only five to six months left for the Games to begin in Glasgow. But I did not have a second thought. I have always had huge faith in him. I said, “Sir, I am even ready to jump from the second floor of a building.” So, the coach and the athlete were mentally ready. That was the first test for the both of us. The first major hurdle was crossed.
Pause, rewind, play: When Dipa Karmakar pulled off dangerous Produnova to create history at CWG 2014
Excerpted with permission from Dipa Karmakar: The Small Wonder, Bishweshwar Nandi, Digvijay Singh Deo, Vimal Mohan, Fingerprint! Publishing.