Chandigarh: A sport where athletes are always at a high risk of getting injured, artistic gymnastics hardly had any takers in the country as lack of facilities (including modern equipments) coupled with indifferent attitude of the government and authorities concerned made it the least sought after game. However, Dipa Karmakar, single-handedly, seems to have changed that perception towards the sports. Though she failed to bag a medal at Rio Olympics, her feat (fourth finish) in a sport deemed as eccentric, not only brought her an unprecedented fame, it also brought artistic gymnastics into limelight in India.
“Dipa Karmakar’s success will have a lot of positive effect on Indian gymnastics as a whole. She will not only motivate the whole lot of gymnasts but also the coaches to work harder with their trainees. Not only she got the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, her coach Bisweshwar Nandi also got the Dronacharya award. It will motivate other coaches as well,” says Rajinder Sharma, SAI coach at Panjab University Day-Boarding scheme, adding, “She comes from a poor family. Whatever she is today is because of her dedication and hard work. She performed one of the most deadly vaults called Produnova to bag those extra points and that makes her feat more valuable.”
The coach who trains around 35-40 youngsters, including girls, mostly belonging to poor families says, “Earlier gymnastics was considered as a sport for getting entry into the circus. But with Dipa’s achievement at the international level, we all expect good support from the government as well. She has given recognition to our sport. Till now mostly children from poor family used come and play this sport. But now we do expect well-to-do families sending their kids to practice artistic gymnastics,” said Sharma, adding that gymnastics needs to be started at a very tender age at the school level itself.
“See China, by the age of 20, their gymnasts retire. It’s a sport of flexibility, strength and agility which decreases with age,” he said.
“Earlier nobody really knew about this sport. But now because of Dipa’s feat everyone knows about it. We do expect private sponsors coming in into this sport. Dipa has become an inspiration for all of us,” says Devinder Singh, a National School Games medallist.
“What we require are safety equipments. It’s an injury prone sports in which high risk is involved. So better the equipments, more confidently the children will practice and perform. We also need insurance for the gymnasts at all level. As of now only those under SAI schemes get that insurance. Even state associations will have to come forward and offer these schemes,” say Shahshank Singh and Arun Gautam, who had been into gymnastics since years and have been practicing with whatever minimum equipments are available at their disposal.
