Dipa Karmakar retires: Despite the lack of an Olympic medal, the gymnast will be remembered as one of India's greatest athletes

It was an end of an era in Indian gymnastics on Monday with Dipa Karmakar announcing her retirement at the age of 31, eight years after nearly delivering a historic Olympic medal in Rio de Janiero.

“After much thought and reflection, I have decided to retire from competitive gymnastics. This is not an easy decision, but it feels like the right time.

“Gymnastics has been at the centre of my life for as long as I can remember, and I am grateful for every moment — the highs, the lows, and everything in between,” Karmakar said in a statement on Monday.

Karmakar’s decision comes five months after she won a historic vault gold at the Asian Women’s Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, becoming the first Indian to stand on top of the podium at the event.

She had won multiple medals at the Senior National Championships in January earlier this year in what was her first appearance in the event in eight years.

“My last victory at the Asian Gymnastics Championship in Tashkent was a turning point because until then, I thought I could push my body further, but sometimes our bodies tell us it’s time to rest, even if the heart doesn’t agree,” Karmakar added in her statement.

Karmakar was starting to mount a successful comeback after undergoing two Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) surgeries along with a 21-month suspension for a doping violation took several years off her career.

Her steady rise in fortunes in recent months, however, did not lead to a place in the Paris Olympics, resulting in India not sending a gymnastics team to the world’s biggest multi-sporting event after sending at least one athlete in the previous two editions.

By failing to make one last appearance in the Olympics in the French capital, Karmakar perhaps got the hint that it finally was time for her move on and hang up her boots once and for all.

The Agartala native signs off with several medals in global events to her name, including a bronze in the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games. Her dream of winning India its first-ever gymnastics medal in Olympics, however, will remain just that — a dream.

The lack of an Olympic medal in her cabinet, however, doesn’t disqualify Karmakar from being counted among India’s greatest athletes of all time.

Conquering the ‘Produnova’ hurdle

Despite having the world’s largest population, which many would equate to an bottomless reservoir of sporting talent, India is nowhere in the league of the United States, China and other nations when it comes to producing medallists at the Olympics and World Championships generation after generation.

Besides being the dominant force in cricket, India have won medals in only a handful of sporting disciplines at the Olympics over the years, a majority of which have come in hockey, wrestling and shooting.

Gymnastics unfortunately doesn’t have much of a legacy in India; it was in the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi that India won its first medal at a major event with Ashish Kumar winning bronze.

At the administrative level, the Gymnastics Federation of India (GFI) lay in ruins thanks to infighting between two factions that led to the federation getting derecognised for a decade starting in 2011.

In such a scenario, for Karmakar to not only chart her own path under the guidance of coach Bisweswar Nandi but to nearly deliver a medal at the Olympics, where the erstwhile Soviet Union and present-day Russia along with the United States are the dominant powers, is nothing short of extraordinary.

Karmakar became the first Indian gymnast, male or female, to make it to the final, where she finished with a final score of 15.066 — narrowly short of bronze medallist Giulia Steingruber’s score of 15.216. Despite failing to join the legendary Simone Biles of USA and Russia’s Maria Paseka on the podium, her performance had forced the gymnastics world to sit up and take notice.

But what truly cemented her legacy as a gymnastics icon was her accomplishment of the dangerous ‘Produnova’ vault — her signature move that has been accomplished only by a handful of gymnasts from across the world till date.

The ‘Produnova’, a.k.a. the handspring double salto forward tucked, is described as the ‘vault of death’ by some and involves a front handspring onto the vaulting horse and two front somersaults in a tucked position off it.

Karmakar is among only five female gymnasts to have ever accomplished the feat, and that puts her in an elite category of global athletes that does not include even the legendary Biles.

“When I look back, I feel an overwhelming sense of pride for everything I’ve achieved. Representing India on the world stage, winning medals, and most memorably, performing the Produnova vault at the Rio Olympics, will forever be cherished as the pinnacle of my career.

Dipa Karmakar is one of only five women worldwide who has mastered the Produnova vault. 🤸‍♀️@WeAreTeamIndia | @DipaKarmakar pic.twitter.com/ZtmI63SCpx

“These moments were not just victories for me; they were victories for every young girl in India who dared to dream, who believed that with hard work and determination, anything is possible,” Karmakar added in her statement.

It’s been quite the ride for Karmakar, who had to overcome the additional challenge of flat feet on her way to becoming a world-class gymnast. And with her retirement, it remains to be seen how long it takes for India to discover another world-class talent like her, someone who can deliver the elusive Olympic medal in the years to come.

Karmakar, however, will forever be remembered as the one who put Indian gymnastics on the world sporting map. In an exclusive chat with Firstpost in January shortly after her appearance at the Senior Nationals, Karmakar summed up her legacy perfectly.

“Before 2014 Commonwealth Games, not everyone was aware about gymnastics. After Rio, everyone knew gymnastics is also a sport where India can win a medal. I’m happy that after Rio, everyone got to know just how gorgeous and precise gymnastics is as a sport where the athletes are performing some big moves such as the ‘Produnova’, which are very risky in nature.

“Hopefully in the coming years, whether Olympics, Commonwealth Games, Asian Games or any other event, we win a medal and that the sport grows in popularity in the country,” Karmakar had said in January.

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