People Asked Me If Gymnastics Had Something To Do With Circus: Dipa Karmakar To NDTV

New Delhi: Dipa Karmakar, a gymnast from the small north-east state of Tripura, is a household name today. After all, she was the first Indian gymnast to qualify for the final of any Olympic event and is among the five women in the world capable of pulling off the highly difficult 'Produnova' vault.

But behind the success, lies immense hard work and sacrifice. With next to no funding available, the 23-year-old had to make do with practicing her skills on out-of-date apparatus.

With little to no attention paid to gymnastics as a sport in India over the years, it is not very surprising Ms Karmakar had to answer questions which equated gymnastics to circus.

"People used to ask me if gymnastics were something to do with the circus. When I made it to the Olympics, there was a lot of pressure but I just forgot all of that and tried to give my best," said Ms Karmakar at NDTV's Youth For Change Conclave where she participated in a discussion on 'How passionate is the next generation about sports?'

In a lighter moment, the gymnast also spoke about how sportpersons have to try and find a balance between studies and sports while growing up. "Sportspeople are intelligent, they don't need to work hard for marks. I took an exam the day after I got back from Rio. Don't get 80% but I manage 60-70%," she said.

At the 2016 Rio Olympics, Ms Karmakar finished fourth in the women's vault final. She scored an average of 15.066 points, a mere 0.15 less than the eventual bronze winner Giulia Steingruber (15.216) of Switzerland.

Dipa, who had scored 14.850 in the qualifying round, executed the Produnova, which consists of a front handspring and two front somersaults. It is so difficult that even its inventor, Elena Produnova, landed it standing up just once in her career.