Gymnastics: Dipa Karmakar resumes practice after eight months lay-off

New Delhi, Jan 2: Dipa Karmakar has resumed practising her vault after a gap of eight long months. The 24-year-old gymnast had to undergo a surgery in her left knee, last April and went on a rehab for around five months.

She finally resumed practising her vault from last month at Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium in New Delhi under the intensive observation of her Dronacharya Awardee coach Bishweshwar Nandy.

Speaking over phone from New Delhi on Monday, Bishweshwar explained that Dipa, who has tremendous mental strength since her childhood, is now watching the video of oldest vault performer in the world gymnastics.

Oksana Chusovitna from Uzbekistan, who has represented Soviet Union, Germany and currently performing under Uzbekistan's flag.

Interestingly, Oksana is one of those rare vault players who performs Produnova vault even at the age of 42 years. Dipa received huge appreciation during Rio Olympics 2016 for performing the difficult Produnova vault and missed the medal by a whisker.

Dipa’s coach added further, “Oksana was in Montreal to take part in World Gymnastics championship in October and even at this age, she reached in the final vault. Dipa, after having watched her performance on the internet, wondered and asked me how Oksana has been able to perform at this age. I had same words I have been telling her for last 10 years and that is 'hard work is the only recipe for success'.”

Dipa might not be able to take part in Commonwealth Games, scheduled to take place in Australia in April, this year.

According to her coach, the vault player - who finished at the fourth position in Rio Olympics - might be fully fit before Asian Games that will take place in August.

Nandy also has plans to take Dipa for a trip to any European country for her training and participation in a less competitive tournament before the start of Asian Games.

He further added, “I have plans to take her to a European country where she will be able to train with quality vault players and if she can participate in some less competitive tournament during the training then I will be able to assess her state of performance exactly.”