2016 Rio Olympics: Who is Dipa Karmakar? All you need to know

The Indian gymnast has qualified for the finals of the vault event at the Olympics

“I want to do well in Rio. My first target will be reaching the final first,” gymnast Dipa Karmakar had said at the official send-off ceremony of Indian contingent for the Olympics. Twenty days later, she has successfully achieved that target. 

The focus now shifts to the finals of the vault event on Sunday (August 14), which Karmakar entered with an eighth rank in the qualifying round.

The 22-year-old is already a part of gymnastics history after becoming the first Indian woman gymnast to qualify for the Games. Having won many medals in the recent years, Karmakar has been sought after to script history, even as India looks to get its first medal in an Olympics gymnastics event. 

Read our full coverage on the 2016 Rio Olympics

Here’s all you need to know about the Dipa Karmakar. 

Numbers Speak 

Number of medals won so far: 77

Number of gold medals among them: 67 

Platforms: State, national and international platforms

Claim to fame

The Tripura-based gymnast rose to fame after winning the bronze medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games held in Glasgow and the following Asian Championships at Hiroshima. She also qualified for the finals of the 2015 World Championships. Most recently, she won a gold medal in the vault finals of an Olympic test event in 2016. 

Her performance has stunned many mainly because of her ‘dangerous’ Produnova vault. She is said to have done about 1,000 repetitions of the move, according to a media report.

What is a Produnova vault?

The act involves a double front somersault vault. A front handspring and two front somersaults have to be done before landing. The manoeuvre is considered dangerous as it can cause spinial injury if the gymnast lands on the wrong foot, or worse, can even turn fatal. There have been calls for banning the Produnova routine, too. Only five women have successfully attempted this form of vault in the history of the sport, one of whom is Karmakar. 

The demand may well get more vocal, after a recent, separate manoeuvre saw French gymnast Samir Ait Said breaking his leg during a vault.
 

Challenges

Apart from attempting to master this form of vault, Karmkar had challenges right from when she started training at the age of six. It was discovered that she had a postural deformity — flat feet —in which entire sole of the foot touches the ground. The condition affects the spring in the jump of the gymnast. So, right from the initial days of the training, Dipa and her coach worked on getting the curve on her feet, according to the website The Quint.

Training

Karmakar trains at the Indira Gandhi stadium in New Delhi. Her routine involves raining almost eight hours a day in two sessions and is said to have special equipment placed at the stadium.