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Dipa Karmakar

“You can’t be a gymnast”- This was the first thing Dipa Karmakar was told when she expressed a desire to pursue gymnastics. Dipa was flat-footed. A condition that affects a gymnast’s performance. Not one to give up, Dipa overcame the condition and developed arches in her feet through rigorous training. But that was not the only battle Dipa had to fight.

Hailing from Tripura, one of the poorest and least developed states in India, Dipa’s path to glory was riddled with obstacles. She had to give up English medium education in favour of gymnastics because her family could not afford both. Her first gym was a desolate, asbestos-roofed building with makeshift equipment where she used to stack mats on top of each other to practice. Monsoons would bring flooding and an infestation of rodents. 

And then she had to fight perception. The perception of women gymnasts not being good enough. The perception that women came to camps only for food and fun.

She remembers a foreign coach lining up all the women gymnasts before they were to set sail for the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games and telling them that only the boys had any chance of winning. That comment fuelled such a rage in her that she knew that it was time to take unparalleled risks to prove everyone wrong. And so, she decided to master the Produnova, better known as the ‘vault of death’.

The most dangerous manoeuvre in gymnastics, Produnova has a 7.0 difficult score, the highest in gymnastics. Even the American 4’8’’ giant of a gymnast Simone Biles says she would never attempt the Produnova. But Dipa knew that this was the only way she could get higher points and win a chance at being on a podium.  

Dipa landed the Produnova at the Commonwealth games, securing a bronze. With that, she became the first Indian woman to win a gymnastics medal and one of the only 5 women in the world who have successfully landed the vault of death.

Dipa had silenced all her critiques.

“If you want to achieve something in life, you have to take risks”- Dipa Karmakar

The Produnova became Dipa’s signature manoeuvre which brought her close to a podium position in the 2016 Rio Olympics. But to Dipa, this manoeuvre is not just her signature, it is her stand for womens' empowerment and equal opportunity for women in India.

Part of the series- I Am Possible