Agencies
While words like ‘fitness’, ‘mental health’ and ‘human’ have seen heavy use for Simone Biles who decided to bow out of the Olympic finals, another gymnast’s exit at an earlier stage of the same competition has not received quite the same kindness in India.
India’s only female Olympics gymnast after Dipa Karmakar, Pranati Nayak, finished in the bottom half of the Women’s Artistic Gymnastics qualifying round last week. Her low score was partly because of a decision similar to Biles — to not do the second of two vaults. Yet unlike Biles, Nayak and her coach are facing flak.
“We can’t stop anyone from thinking or saying what they think is right. The ground situation is something only Pranati and I know. The world has seen what we have done. A duty was given to me, I have carried it out to the best of my abilities,” said Lakhan Sharma, a day after arriving in India from the Tokyo Olympics.
Sharma, Pranati’s coach, was under fire even before the Kolkata-based athlete’s exit from the games. One of the leading critics of Sharma’s role has been Minara Begum, Pranati’s former coach who has previously expressed her disappointment at not being allowed to travel with her.
“My eyes welled up with tears seeing Pranati’s meek performance… How can the coach (Sharma) let her do this? Only a coach takes such decisions (of not attempting a second Vault)… He is not even made a district-level gymnast, an unknown name in Indian gymnastics,” Minara Begum had told PTI on the day of Pranati’s event.
