Dipa Karmakar’s Produnova – A degree in Difficulty

‘You know shit is getting real when Dipa is on the trending page’
– The reluctant admirer admitted (18 April 2016)

Progression of a gymnastics routine is a thing of great thrill and glee among the sport’s followers. Not so with the Produnova, a high-risk vault that is literally catapulting India’s Dipa Karmakar into international gymnastics’ highest orbit. The double front somersault that was performed perfectly by Russian Elena Produnova in 1999 continues to draw such disparaging feedback on its contemporary practitioners from the paranoid populace of the sport’s traditional followers, that it’s tough to separate rabid criticism from what might be well-meaninged and reasonable.

Karmakar, who qualified for the Olympics (as a historic first for an Indian woman) will continue to compete the Produnova two years after she first unveiled it at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, as she targets an unbelievable Rio medal. Gymnastics’ followers, watching in dread and disbelief as girls launched off the vaulting table for two and half aerial saltos to land awkwardly, meanwhile, are having to revise their feelings about this specialised skill that’s definitely dangerous if botched in execution.

READ: Second vault, not secondary

A medal or not, Dipa Karmakar might end up a game-changer in the sport, by getting the weeping cynics to finally accept that the gutsy Produnova vault and its lineage of bold leaping deserves a worthy successor. Even if it’s from the unlikeliest corners of the world – from India.

Trouble started about five years ago when Yamilet Pena Abreu of Dominican Republic and Egyptian Fadwa Mahmoud attempted the dangerous vault in search of a high score (it has the highest Difficulty of 7) , and even dicey executions occasionally fetched them a place in an event final. But it put a lot of hearts in mouths, as fans seethed over Produnova wannabes from non-traditional countries going for broke and tumbling hazardously. That the athletes who couldn’t reach the finals with lesser difficult vaults were using this tougher maneuver, to move ahead, didn’t sit well with traditional fans.

The nature of the Produnova landing came with the risk of spinal injuries, and annoyance morphed into anger when a 13-year-old French girl Coline Devillard was said to be attempting it in training.

Fadwa had crashed after touching feet first barely for a score of 14.556, Abreu nominally landed, and did a sloppy somersault on mat later for 14.900. Fans accustomed to clean lines and smooth stick landings, balked at the cowboying (knees sticking out during the tuck), jeered the butt touching the mat after the feet, and were altogether contemptuous of the 2-3 steps the girls hopped forward after landing. On the vault, unlike any other apparatus, you could ‘fall’ and still be in medal range. The Produnova was claimed by the snobs and those highly proprietorial about the original.

Arriving on scene
Derision for the ‘Produnova ‘mini-me’s, as the girls got called, had reached a tempestuous pitch by the time Dipa Karmakar arrived on the scene.

“I’ve seen rabid critics against the Produnova in general, especially when Yamilet Peña was competing it regularly,” recalls Lauren Hopkins, a respected American writer on the sport, and head of the influential online community, Gymternet in an emailed interview to the Express. “Peña had many critics because she would cheat a bit – she knew she would sit down the vault, which counts as a fall. So in order to get credit she’d whip her feet around and make sure her feet hit first so that she wouldn’t get a score of zero (if you land on your backside before your feet touch the ground, it’s a zero but feet touching first means you get deducted a point for a fall),” she adds.

What sets Dipa apart, though, is the degree of reassurance of safety she brings to a dangerous jump.

“Generally when people see Dipa’s Produnova, their reaction is that it’s “the best Produnova since the original”” Hopkins declares. When she first saw Karmakar at the Commonwealth Games, she reckoned there were a few countries there that seemed like they would take most of the medals (Great Britain, Australia, Canada) and she didn’t expect much from the Indians. “I first saw her Produnova in qualifications at Glasgow and that’s when my perspective changed about their medal prospects! Peña’s attempts were definitely scary. But when I saw Dipa I thought she had a much stronger vault and was happy to see her doing it well in comparison,” she recalls.

Hopkins remembers the first thrill she felt at seeing the Indian get bronze. “The best part of her vault is that she is quite powerful and you don’t have to fear for her landings. I have never seen a scary or dangerous landing from her,” she says. Karmakar always gets the rotations completely around, which means there’s little fear of her hitting it. She lands it consistently, never causing panic.

It has meant that the world is slowly viewing her with a lot of respect. “They love watching her. I know at the Rio test event, everyone was so impressed with how far she’s come. She also gets a lot of respect because it is well known that she trains without the resources that most of the other top gymnastics programs in the world have, and yet she is one of the best. Everyone’s happy for her to qualify and wants to see her do a great job at the Olympics this summer,” Hopkins adds.

When her qualification hiked up her government funding from Rs 20 lakh to 30 lakh, the top teams at Rio had noted with amusement how one of the world’s boldest vaulters had declared how she was happy at the increase of “a mere $15K!”

So, now the world’s getting accustomed to watching the Indian pull off the Big V – given her consistency over the CWG, World Championships, Asian Games and now the Rio test event.

“Dipa. Better Double Front than prelims. Feet first for sure. I’d still happily ban that vault for WAG. But at least I can watch Dipa” a renowned gymnastics twitter account noted. It’s a calmly reached consensus, where the Indian has silenced doubters temporarily, though she still cops flak for the way she lands.

It’s Karmakar’s low landing, almost squatting when she touches down, that irks the Produnova purists.

“Technically her vault is valid because she does land it…if you watch the video from the side it looks like her backside touches the mat, because the mat kind of bounces up, but if you watch from a front angle you can see that she never actually touches it, she just squats very low in her landing. It’s not ideal, but it’s technically valid because she never actually sits down,” Hopkins explains. The low landings would earn her deductions earlier when she was a bit wobbly, but now even the docking of points has stopped as she gets better. Hopkins has often commented about what she calls Dipa’s “butt-grazer” – the close to the mat landing, from which she springs up quickly. “She’s always a bit off, always too low, but never in a dangerous way.”

Left: The Produnova vault valued at 7.0 difficulty is a front handspring double salto. The correct tuck position for the Produnova is to keep knees together in saltos. But even the men who have the same vault under a different name struggle to keep knees tucked because they need the quick rotation in order to get the flips.

Bottom: The Tsukahara 2/1 is a half-turn onto the horse and a complete back salto with a 720 degree twist around the vertical axis. Dipa needs to stay tight in her twist and concentrate on not taking steps in the landing of the 6.0 Difficulty vault. The legendary Oksana Chusovitna of Uzbekistan is another Tsuk double specialist.

‘Best since Elena Produnova’
In a perfect Prod-vault, it’s ideal to come in with more power off the table and to get more height so that there’s more time to rotate the flips and land well. “But I’ve never seen Dipa not get her flips fully around whereas other gymnasts who have attempted this don’t even come close. I think most people tend to trust that she’s going to hit every time. I’ve seen more positive support for her vault than criticism, because it’s definitely the best-landed Produnova since Elena Produnova herself,” she says, dismissing every last worry that Karmakar could be just another impetuous vaulter, hoping more than knowing that she’ll land safe.

Karmakar might be calming down many nerves with her steady and ever-improving landings, but the highest difficulty women’s vault still sends shivers down several spines, with calls for it to be banned even.

Though, there’s those who say all of gymnastic carries a whiff of injury at all times. The double front on the floor has seen neck-breaks and the Amanar vault or twists have their fair share of busted knees. Russian Aliya Mustafina chucked an Amanar in 2011 for a career threatening injury, while American Rebecca Bross blew her right knee on the fairly ubiquitous Double Twisting Yurchenko. There’s no known instance of a gymnast seriously injured after crashing a Produnova. And though handspring vault entries – once popular – have almost disappeared from American women’s gymnastics, there’s many out there quietly wondering if an explosive vaulter like Simone Biles could pull off a Produnova some day.

“A part of me wants to see someone like Biles, Julia, etc compete this and more difficult vaults one day. If it gets banned, then a whole line of vaults go out the window (like the Dragulesscu),” a chat forum gymnastics enthusiast says, while another wonders, “Why are we talking about banning it for the next girl who like Produnova can do it safely?”

Even Elena had poor form on the double front handspring before she struck perfection on her eponymous skill and Biles, the biggest name in gymnastics right now, too took time to master the Amanar (another tough vault). So, calls to lower the start value of Difficulty (bring it down from 7) – though popular – aren’t entirely resounding. “I do think it deserves a 7.0 difficulty value. If they devalue it to match some of the easier and more popular vaults it will also limit those who could potentially do it well, as there would be little incentive to perform it, which would be a shame because I think gymnastics should keep getting more and more difficult and constantly push the envelope,” she adds.

So, even as the Produnova props Karmakar’s career, the 22-year-old herself is helping revive the Produnova – by putting it at the centre of her vaulting challenge.

It’s apt here to revisit a 19-year old Elena’s thoughts about her choice of the vault in 1999. “It’s necessary to push the limits, otherwise there would not be a winner in competition. A winner should always show something new, something extraordinary,” the well-built Russian had said.

“Dipa has done a lot of work to get it better with each competition, so she’s not just throwing the skill and hoping not to fall. There’s still a lot of training and effort that goes into it, and of every Produnova attempted since the original, Dipa has come closest to being the most consistent with her landings,” Hopkins says.

The Amanar – like the Produnova, was done best by the originator and then a long lull followed when no one else came along. When the scoring system changed, many more gymnasts began attempting it. Still one of the most difficult in the world, coaches have gotten better at it because it’s attempted much oftener now. Simone Biles’s Amanar is considered much better than the original.

A similar progression is due in the Produnova. Incredibly for India, its girl, is at the centre of this revolution. Dipa Karmakar is destined to go down in history as an audacious competitor. An Olympic medal will only be just reward for taming gymnastics’ fiendishly dangerous vault.