This Independence Day, Dipa Karmakar is as much a national hero as the freedom fighters we celebrate on the day. From Olympians to politicians to just about every active person on social media, everyone spoke of her performance in the vault finals yesterday.
Karmakar stood fourth, missed an Olympic medal. But so narrow was her margin, so extraordinary her story that no one other than Dipa rued the lack of a medal. Tweets of pride in a gymnast who has gone where no other Indian have been constantly pouring in.
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A very huge reason why the global media is drawn to Dipa is because she is one of the few gymnasts in the world who can accomplish a Produnova. The vault is a dangerous one – the world’s greatest living gymnast Simone Biles has announced that she will never do it – and Dipa’s choice of going ahead with it will forever be a testament to the time when an Indian athlete had to choose between the death vault or nothing.
However, yesterday an article appeared on Firstpost that outlined the wretchedness of Karmakar’s predicament. In its denouncement of the lack of infrastructure, available resource and support in India, the article hits the bull’s-eye. We all want her success, yet we are not willing to nurture a world class gymnast as a nation.
However, the article also makes a few assumptions that a deeper look into the life of a gymnast – any gymnast – will reveal to be too hasty. The author paints Dipa’s choices as a sportsperson with the same sweeping brush of the emotional wave that has now gripped us all. He makes it seem that she is being forced to attempt the Produnova against her will. He wishes that no more gymnasts emerge from this country; it is implied that he doesn’t want them to live a life of constant struggle, and that the country needs to provide them with adequate support.
I agree with his anger. It is a variation of a statement many writers, including the ones of Sportskeeda, have made in the lead up to the vault finals. But the article denies Dipa the agency that she has as an artistic gymnast to capitalise on her strengths.
A deeper look at why Dipa chose the Produnova, why she made it her own
The vault is Karmakar’s sole strength among the four apparatus. Her performance in it outdoes her performance on the beam, bars and the floor by far.
Every gymnast performs two vaults from two different ‘vault families’ in succession, at all international competitions. There are a vast but limited number of vaults you can try. Each twist, each salto and each layout contributes to a pre-assigned difficulty rating in the FIG’s Code of Points.
The D-score is constant but the execution score depends on the gymnast’s performance on the day. Whether his or her arms are tucked, whether he or she takes a large hop after landing and before sticking, and so on.
There is no reason or excuse not to treat Dipa like the world class athlete that she is. And that means speaking about her performance candidly. When Simone Biles scored 9.6 on her first execution yesterday, critics noted that she had dropped a 0.1 from her usual 9.7 – which is an indicator of the many variables that go into a gymnast’s score.
Karmakar’s execution scores usually hover around the early 8s – with yesterday being one of the instances when she outdid herself with an 8.866 on the Tsukahara. It is a mark of her extreme maturity as an athlete that she therefore chooses vaults that are difficult and can help her achieve her goal – a high overall score.
The Produnova is the only vault that can get the highest possible score. But it is not the vault that has managed to do so.
In the few videos that exist of Karmakar, I have never seen her attempt the Amanar – a huge favourite with the U.S. team that recorded the highest Olympic score of 16.233 by McKayla Maroney in London 2012. With a difficulty rating of 6.3, the vault pushes the gymnast to execute well. It has fewer execution challenges, making sure that a perfect Amanar can break the 16 mark barrier.
The fact that Dipa does not choose the Amanar or any other relatively high scoring vault and instead does the Produnova points to a simple fact. She, as any person in sports would, prioritises on showcasing her skills instead of baring her weaknesses.
Dipa could well to attempt an execution-favouring vault, but she attempts the vault that favours difficulty. This pays off well for her, because her execution is known to suffer, but not her courage.
What is Dipa a symbol of?
The Firspost article says in its headline that Dipa Karmakar is a symbol of India's failure, hypocrisy and mediocrity, and this is where it is grossly wrong. Dipa is a symbol of the power of overcoming such failures, such hypocrisy and such mediocrity. She is a symbol of the power of the individual, something that has been on show so many times over the last few days in Brazil.
With the exception of Simone Biles, it takes a gymnast years to develop the two trademark skills that they showcase in the vaults. 41-year-old Oksana Chusovitina – who has eschewed back handsprings (like Dipa) throughout her 25 year long career – did the Produnova yesterday and had to roll on the mat to steady herself. Having represented the mighty Soviet, Germany and now Uzbekistan, Chusovitina was naturally bolstered by a better system than Dipa has been, yet she chooses to do the more ‘difficult’ vaults too.
I do not deny the fact that Dipa’s choice of the Produnova would perhaps have been avoided if she had a system behind her like the U.S.A. gymnasts have in place. Yet, one of the few people to demystify the Produnova and take it down from its position on a pedestal of tragedy that we have been quick to put it on, has been Dipa herself.
She has apparently done the vault thousands of times and it is one that she is most comfortable with. This does not mean that we should believe that it is any less dangerous. In her extraordinary humility, it is likely for her to say something like that upon knowing that the country was obsessing over her dangerous choice.
Dipa’s decision to attempt the Produnova simply means that we take a closer look at her as an athlete, instead of pronouncing sweeping judgements on a gymnast’s predicament that we have only recently been made aware of.
