In a land of 1.4 billion people, you need to do something extraordinary to stand out - something well out there, off the charts. It's tougher when you come from a background that's not privileged, from a state that is literally, if not metaphorically, on the edges of the country's borders. What do you do?
Dipa Karmakar chose to defy gravity.
And she did it in a way that no Indian has done before, in a way few others anywhere in the world have done before. For en route to sporting greatness, she also defied death, a thousand times over.
Barely 4'10", from Agartala, Tripura, Dipa 'vaulted' into India's headlines in 2016 when she finished fourth in the Rio Olympics in the women's individual vault event. She did it by performing something called the Produnova -- a front flip somersault that flows into two more somersaults. The last two are done with knees tucked out wide, with the completion coming just before the gymnast hits the ground. Named after the Russian Yelena Produnova who first performed it, the vault had the highest difficulty rating ever at 7.0 (till it was devalued recently to 6.0, ostensibly to protect athletes from attempting it incorrectly; it's still the second highest rated vault, though) and is considered so dangerous, they call it 'the vault of death'.
That's no exaggeration - here's what the great Simone Biles had to say when asked that year if she'd ever attempt it: "I'm not trying to die." When they asked Dipa a similar question, she said: "The vault is very dangerous. I say, 'Thank you, I like risk'."
That simple line is a window into the Dipa Karmakar psyche: "I like risk". It shows three things -- an appreciation for the reward that's usually at the end of such a risk, excitement at being able to show the world what she can do and a complete belief that it's not really a risk if you practice hard enough. And wow, did she practice hard.
Growing up as the daughter of a weightlifter-turned-weightlifting coach, she was always going to have immense strength in her legs under her father Dulal's training, but very early on (aged five), she discovered the joy of gymnastics at the Vivekananda Byamagar (gymnasium) and never looked back. Under the tutelage first of Soma Nandi and later her husband Bishweshwar, she did everything that was asked of her.
Born with flat feet, she trained hard enough to have the bend needed to be a top-level gymnast - an early indication of her commitment. It's that attitude that struck Soma early on. As she told ESPN in 2016, "She would not stop till she nailed her exercise. She would say, 'Madam yeh karao, complete nahin hua. (let's do this again, it's not complete)'. No matter how long it took. Not every girl has this quality. It was a hunger to get it right." Bishweshwar saw the same thing as he put her to train with the seniors while Dipa was still a junior. "She had an ability to stick to practice, to push for that extra turn, more than the seniors... she would go nonstop and never tire."
Up until now, that's always been Dipa: go nonstop, and keep at it till she gets it right. It's what inspired Bishweshwar to go all in with the calculated risk of the Produnova, great as it may seem to everyone else. "We have to take this risk because we are not a strong nation when it comes to gymnastics," he told Hindustan Times in 2016. "Dipa attempts Produnova because it can get her bigger points and a chance to enter the finals of tournaments."
Within women's gymnastics, vault is the one event that values high risk over sustained choreography (which bored the wits out of Dipa). It's a short sprint, a jump, and the whole thing is done in six seconds. Deemed plebeian by the purists, It's a great leveller in a sport that has way too many levels. This is why, over a decade, the strategy worked wonders for Dipa.
Only the fifth woman ever to land the Produnova, her mastery of it (and other equally complex vaults like the Tsukahara 720) helped her achieve innumerable feats. Just look at the list of her firsts -- First Indian gymnast to qualify for the Olympics (2016). First Indian gymnast to qualify for the final stage at a World Championships (2015). First Indian gymnast to win an Asian Championships gold (2024). First Indian woman gymnast (and second Indian) to medal at a Commonwealth Games (2014). First Indian gymnast to win gold at a major global event (World Challenge Cup, 2018 Mersin leg) -- and you begin to realise just how special her well-prepared risk-taking made her.
She may not have won that Olympic medal, finishing an agonizing 0.15 points behind bronze, but as she told the official Olympic channel a few years back, she looks back at it with pride. "It was my best score ever. In fact, it was a better score than the one that won bronze [in London 2012]...I missed the medal by [so small a margin], someone must finish fourth, eh?"
The years after Rio were filled with more pain than medals, with multiple injuries, sub-par rehab and a long ban from the world anti-doping agency wrecking her career's momentum but we got a glimpse of her champion will just a few months back. Her Asian Championships gold, at the age of 32, was an incredible feat -- coming as it did after months of international inactivity - and it's perhaps fitting that in her last event, she stood tall at the top of a podium; a place no Indian has gone before. Having been dropped from the funded group for the latest Asian Games and Olympics after her ban (which she accepted because she simply couldn't understand how the substance had gotten into her body), it felt like this was one last reminder for her naysayers. 'I'm Dipa Karmakar, and if I set my mind to it, I get it done,' it seemed to say.
Now, when she's realised her tortured body can take no more, of course, this is how she signs off, one final feat of wonderful brilliance given extra sheen thanks to the golden glow around her neck. "Today," she would write in her retirement note, "I feel so happy when I look at that [young] Dipa... because she had the courage to dream."
Signing off from the mat! ❤️
Thank you to everyone who has been a part of my journey.
Onto the next chapter����♀️���� pic.twitter.com/kW5KQZLr29- Dipa Karmakar (@DipaKarmakar) October 7, 2024
What a dream she lived. Tripura may have long harboured a love for gymnastics, but in a country where the collective apathy of sports administrators is almost legendary, where safe landing facilities are still scarce (for years, men would jump into ponds off the vault to make sure no bone was broken), where her training facility (in Agartala) looks like a mechanic's shed and would get flooded in the monsoons and the vaults were mats laid on top of each other, and where the sport in itself was viewed more with casual detachment (at best) and a circus show (at worst), what Dipa has done is truly extraordinary. It's a career that is an ode to the power of pure willpower and unwavering discipline.
In a country that loves its sporting outliers, she might be the outlier-est of them all. The future for Indian gymnastics remains as bleak as it was before Dipa sprung into the country's collective imagination in that bright blue leotard. No Indian gymnast qualifying for the Paris Game was a clear indication of that, and even though Pranati Nayak is still around with her Asian Championships bronze medal-winning pedigree, there hasn't been much else to sing about.
For now, the Vivekananda Byamagar and the Nandis and everyone there will keep at it, trying to find the next prodigy who will apply themselves with the level of zeal their favourite protégé showed all those years back. Dipa herself has promised that she'll be at the forefront of that hunt.
So, as she announces her retirement with a quiet Instagram post, let's celebrate Dipa Karmakar for the trailblazing champion that she is.