India promise a golden vault

Back from injury, Dipa Karmakar won gold at World Challenge Cup but faces fresh challenge in Jakarta

Much before Dipa Karmakar’s Produnova feat (vault of death) at the 2016 Rio Olympics left everyone spellbound and helped India take a giant leap in gymnastics, it was the taciturn Allahabad boy Ashish Kumar who had given recognition to the sport for the first time, winning silver and bronze at the 2014 Commonwealth Games. A bigger achievement came weeks later when he challenged the Chinese might to become the first India to clinch the floor exercise bronze at the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou.

The meagre gains in the sport, which has a huge global following, is not on account of Indian athletes not giving their best but because the people who run the sport are bent upon negating the efforts of the athletes. The drama that unfolded before the Commonwealth Games saw a clueless gymnastics team fare badly in Gold Coast, finishing ninth and seventh in the men’s and women’s team section, respectively. It’s another thing that Karmakar too was not part of the contingent, dealing a major blow to India’s chances.

It was a turbulent ride right from Delhi to Gold Coast for the gymnasts as the team reached a day before the opening ceremony, not to mention that two gymnasts were dropped, creating an imbalance in the team.

The Indian Olympic Association panel picked up the two athletes — Gaurav Kumar and Mohammad Bobby — but later it was found that they didn’t have the International Gymnastics Federation license. Yogeshwar Singh and Rakesh Patra replaced them, prompting the aggrieved gymnasts to seek court intervention.

Controversies kept haunting the gymnasts at Gold Coast too as the trio of Aruna Budda Reddy, Praniti Nayak and Praniti Das was docked points after it was found that the national emblem was missing from their leotards. They also received penalty points for not wearing identical leotards during the team final.

But four months from the illfated Games, Indian gymnasts are more focused and have been boosted by the return of Dipa Karmakar.

A buoyed Ashish feels his training in Belgium will help him win gold in Jakarta. “Circumstances (before the CWG) almost destroyed Indian gymnastics. We were clueless about what was going on. Now, I have learnt how to keep away from bad memories and focus on the positives,” said Ashish.

“Being the only medal-winning Indian gymnast at the Asian Games, I am looking forward to changing the colour of my medal. The expectations are high this time around,” said the 28-yearold, who had a 12th place finish at the 2014 Asian Games at Incheon.

But more than Ashish, Dipa Karmakar would be the bigger favourite. She announced her comeback from a careerthreatening injury by winning gold at the Artistic Gymnastics World Challenge Cup in Mersin, Turkey.

Initially, Dipa was confident of a comeback at the CWG but her rehabilitation took more time than expected. “The knee injury took two years to heal. Her return to the competitive arena is in itself a miracle . But I was expecting this from a fighter like Dipa,” her coach Bisweswar Nandi said.

“Though no one can predict the outcome, we have high hopes from her. She first needs to make the finals and then we’ll decide,” said Nandi, adding, “a small mistake in a fraction of a second can dash your hopes… “

“Asian Games is a mini-Olympics in gymnastics where countries like China, Japan, South Korea and Uzbekistan compete for every medal,” he added.

Rakesh Patra is another medal hope. The gymnast, currently training in Turkey, aims to break the jinx of finishing fourth in major international competitions. The 26-year-old from Odisha finished fourth in the ring event at the World Challenge Cup in Mersin, Turkey.

Before that, he narrowly missed a medal at the Melbourne World Cup in February. At the Commonwealth Games too, Patra finished fourth in rings.