‘I can’t see Junoon in the current generation of gymnasts’

‘I can’t see it Junoon (passion) a lot in the current generation (of gymnasts). I feel like they’re looking for instant, short-term success’

IMAGE: Dipa Karmakar capped off a career in which she inspired awe by routinely performing the highly difficult Produnova jump. Photography: courtesy of Dipa Karmakar/Instagram

Recently retired Indian gymnastics star Dipa Karmakar believes that most of the current generation of gymnasts lack passion and encouraged them to embrace the sport with fervor to excel on the global stage.

Dipa, who paved the way by becoming the first Indian gymnast to compete at the Olympics and finishing a historic fourth at the 2016 Rio Games, retired earlier this month, ending a career in which she inspired awe by routinely performing the highly difficult Produnova vault. .

“There was Junoon (passion) in Dipa, that’s why. The same goes for Pranati,” she said when asked why there is only one Dipa or Pranati Nayak among the Indian gymnasts who have won medals on the international stage.

“I can’t see it Junoon (passion) a lot in the current generation (of gymnasts). I feel they look for instant, short-term success,” she said on Friday evening during a panel discussion at an event titled ‘Beyond the Finish Line’, organized by Vedanta Delhi Half Marathon.

The diminutive 31-year-old from Tripura made headlines when she finished fourth in the diving final of the 2016 Rio Games, missing out on an Olympic medal by just 0.15 points.

Tokyo Olympian Pranati won a bronze medal in vault at the 2019 and 2022 Asian Championships.

Hailing from Agartala, Dipa is one of the five women in the history of gymnastics to have successfully performed the Produnova, which involves two somersaults before landing and is called the ‘death vault’ due to the high risk of injury it poses.

She felt that the problems that have been plaguing the national federation for some time have also not helped the cause of Indian gymnastics.

“There were problems between SAI and the federation. For example, the selection criteria for the last Asian Games (2023) were only known after the competitions themselves.”

“I want to bring changes in Indian gymnastics so that this kind of problem does not happen in the future, but I cannot do it alone,” she said, when asked about her future plans.

Announcing her retirement, Dipa said she would give back to the sport by becoming a coach at some point in her life or she could simply continue to be a “supporter of the next generation of gymnasts who will follow their dreams.”

Also in May, Dipa won the gold medal in vault at the Asian Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Tashkent, but decided to retire a few months later.

Asked why she made the decision to retire, she said: “I had two ACL surgeries, a shoulder injury and an ankle injury. I wasn’t able to do my main show jumping the way I wanted. If the body isn’t allowing me to push, There’s no point in continuing.”

When she started the sport in her home state, people told her why a woman should do gymnastics.

“People asked negative questions like ‘do women do gymnastics’? Another thing is that a lot of people didn’t know where Tripura is. They asked if it’s in Bangladesh or northeast India.”

“I want to put Tripura on the Indian sporting map and also show that women can excel in gymnastics.”