Vaulting from Midnapore to Tokyo: Pranati Nayak

A chef at Kolkata’s Sports Authority of India (SAI) centre assigned to cook dinner for gymnast Pranati Nayak is getting ready to slice the fish super-fine slightly than the thick fillet, giant chunks he often tosses into the tomato curry. Aside from all of the tweaks that’ll go on over the vaulting desk, Pranati’s palate will now be conditioned to commerce the machher jhol (fish curry) for the sashimi twice every week.
“Our athletes always run into this problem: they struggle for food abroad and then mentally they keep thinking they’ve not eaten properly and are not prepared for competition. Pranati will need to get used to having Japanese meals, so 2 or 3 days in a week, we’ll start her off on the food she might end up eating in Tokyo,” coach Lakhan Sharma says, of India’s newest and solely qualifier in gymnastics on the Olympics, picked for the 4 equipment of All Around competitors.
That’s an astonishing quantity of detailing labored out rapidly, contemplating what has been a shock qualification for the Tokyo Games.
With a bunch of tournaments cancelled – together with the Asian meet at Hangzhou, China for this week – qualification got here right down to Pranati’s outcomes on the final World Championship.
READ | Pranati Nayak follows in Dipa Karmakar’s footsteps
Sneaking in because the second reserve from Asia, the 26-year-old from Midnapore in West Bengal who received bronze within the vault on the Asian Championships in March 2019, has a coach who makes it a degree to maintain himself up to date with worldwide developments.
“There’s just two months left so we’ll only polish the old routines on Floor exercise, Balance beam and Uneven Bars. But she’ll go there with all the upgrades,” says the geeky mentor, hailing from Ujjain, posted at Kolkata as coach.
An order was positioned for a tome on methods, titled Championship Gymnastics penned by Gerald George and illustrated by James Stephenson, costing Rs 30,000 as quickly because it grew to become clear to Sharma that Pranati had an opportunity to get to Tokyo.
Natural aptitude
“She’s a strong gymnast who’s very hardworking. But she’s also a natural, she’ll go further than people expect her to,” Sharma says with a coach’s conviction, hoping to make use of the definitive textual content to shine a few her parts on the Olympics.
To that impact, he’s weaning her away from her cell phone – “only Saturday/Sunday, she’ll be allowed” – he says.
While a physio, masseur and nutritionist will assemble to fine-tune Pranati’s preparation because the SAI enviornment opens its facility just for her, the chef is selecting his finest knives for the usu-zukuri, the advantageous cuts.
Kolkata’s SAI facility had confirmed a attraction for Pranati practically 20 years in the past, although the earliest Samaritan in her profession wasn’t the chef, googling ‘how to make Sushi’ in SAI’s cavernous kitchens.
“Dileep uncle still narrates the story with my father filling in the details,” Pranati begins. “They rejected me saying I was too thin and said I’ll trip on the apparatus. So they told my father to take me back, saying iska nahi hoga (she can’t be admitted),” she laughs.
Pranati Nayak together with her father Sumanta Nayak
Sumanta Nayak had wept when the coach at Kolkata’s coaching centre instructed him that his 8-year-old gymnast daughter wouldn’t make it within the sport and had no place within the hostel. “They said, ‘wo gir jaaegi’ (she will fall). They had not seen her jump and spin and cartwheel around the house. My girl was strong and always landed on her feet. Usme bahut hunar tha. (She was very talented.) When they said that she wouldn’t be taken into the hostel, I couldn’t control my tears,” he remembers.
That’s when Dileep, a helper assigned to wash the equipment and fetch tea, had seen the bawling father break down on the highway, and guided him to Ms Sushmita, the main official on the centre. Sushmita would put in a phrase with the nurturing coach, Minara Begum, who would tackle Pranati’s accountability utterly.
“She never complained, but while her parents would travel 100km to bring her to training while she waited for a hostel, I knew that she was also doing a lot of housework where she stayed. I decided to take charge of her career,” the now-retired coach remembers.
Besides the leotards with frills that she fastened for Pranati and caring for her training and meals (since she was extraordinarily skinny, although not frail), Minara would additionally equip her with abilities, sponged up by the keen learner.
“From the springboard, there’s a forward salto on the beam. I taught her that very early on – because she was sincere and would learn meticulously,” the coach remembers of the tiniest of headstarts for her ward. “Others in India are doing it only now.”
It’s on the vault although that Pranati will look to hold ahead the baton from Rio 4th-placer Dipa Karmakar. It was India’s second World Cup medallist, Aruna B Reddy, additionally a vaulter, in actual fact who alerted Pranati to the prospect of constructing it to Tokyo final week. Pranati’s Handspring ahead 540 (problem 5.8) and Tsukahara again 720 (D: 5.6) have been her dependable routines that she hopes to land completely – banking on the staple if not the spectacular – a la Karmakar. On the Floor, Pranati – a pastime dancer – has a trippy sequence the place her acrobatic traces mix into some bop to the ‘Dom and Tak’ beats of Maashallah from the hit movie Ek Tha Tiger.

It’s on the beam and vault although that Pranati actually finds her rhythm.
Sumanta Nayak and spouse Pratima knew their second daughter had a future in gymnastics when she repurposed all surfaces of their home to spin and whirl proper since they dropped her off at a gymnastics membership, one among tons of that dot Bengal – even the agricultural non-descript cities.
READ | Pranati Nayak vaults to a bronze at Asian meet: For my father, a bus driver
Older sister Jayati and youthful Tapti received busy with books, however Pranati couldn’t cease cartwheeling round. Her father, who moved from Jharkhand to Bengal and drove a bus to make ends meet, was supremely assured that his second daughter had what it took.
“I’ll be honest. After three daughters, I felt a little bad about not having a son. But Pranati showed so much talent that I knew she is going to go further than any male child I might’ve had. I was convinced she was special. That’s why it was important that the Kolkata centre accepted her. She needed a good diet I could see, but only a sports hostel could’ve provided for her. Part reason I cried (when she was turned down) was I couldn’t do much for her if she didn’t get into the training centre,” the daddy remembers.
Prodigious expertise
Coach Minara Begum was impressed with the bridges and ahead and again somersaults of the 9-year-old. She would shepherd her profession together with her personal diligence from 2003, and whereas India was simply acquainting itself with Dipa’s scary vault, Minara would preserve Pranati on the standard path – nothing eye-popping, simply gymnastics fundamentals, executed to the very best of her capacity.
Pranati Nayak with former coach Minara Begum
Pranati wouldn’t overlook concerning the household that had revolved its routine round ferrying her back and forth from follow – at occasions 4-hour rickety bus rides to Kolkata. So the Rs 12 lakh she earned from the Nationals two years in the past noticed her construct a barely greater home in Midnapore and take complete accountability for her older sister’s wedding ceremony couple of years in the past.
Her first medal had come at Children’s Asiad in Russia, whereas she would make the All Around finals (4th on Beam & fifth on vault) of the 2014 Asian Games alongside Dipa.

Pranati Nayak bronze medal profitable Vault from eighth Senior Artistic Gymnastics Asian Championship, Ulaanbaatar Mongolia.
Thanks to @officialAGU for streaming this entire championship reside on YouTube. #IndianGymnastics #AsianGymnastics #AGU #Gymnastics pic.twitter.com/HdknDlT5Dd
— Indian Gymnastics (@IndianGymnastic) June 23, 2019
After her Asian Championship bronze, Pranati had ramped up her vaulting proficiency – even scoring 14.20 on the final main worldwide, although she had slipped on the beam chasing a rating of 48 on the All Around on the German Worlds.
Falling quick at 46.90 at the same time as the primary lockdown got here round, Pranati would intention for the 2022 Commonwealth Games and Asiad. “I was disappointed at the World meet, so I spent all of the lockdown keeping in shape and not going out of training for a single day,” she says.
It meant her father would repair a bamboo horizontally throughout two timber – for her to do the straightforward swings that have been a part of her weakest equipment – the uneven bars. “Olympics wasn’t on my training plan then – this was unexpected. I wanted to do well at the CWG in Birmingham,” Pranati says. “Somewhere, I think, that hard work paid off. Even now with everything closed, Lakhan sir ensures I get training,” Pranati says.
Sharma had been lining up follow at completely different golf equipment – in Bally, Patuli and Dum Dum, with Pranati travelling for as much as an hour and 40 minutes to clock one session of follow wherever attainable.
Pranati Nayak with with coach Lakhan Sharma
Lakhan Sharma would message his trainees – and the membership homeowners would open up their services for the worldwide gymnast, twice every week, to allow her to practise when SAI was closed. “You have to understand what gymnastics means to Bengal. Even the smallest towns have gymnastics clubs with basic infrastructure, nothing fancy. It’s in the culture, even rurally, that’s why it’s not a surprise Pranati’s father saw a future for her in this sport. A lot of girls from Bengal as well as the Northeast are suited for this sport. They aren’t very tall, so lower centre of gravity,” he says. “But moreover, people here are extremely creative and artistic. It’s great to work with gymnasts who understand the art in this sport,” he says.
Sharma says little ladies coaching arduous at golf equipment dotting Bengal’s distant geography have been sure to throw up a winner, although the pandemic serendipitously picked Pranati.
Fine angles outline perfection in gymnastics. In a kitchen nook of Kolkata, this might imply {that a} chef serving a gymnast is studying the finer goujon minimize on the fish, slightly than the chunky troncon.