Most performers would probably not mind hearing ‘break a leg’ before taking the stage. For gymnasts though, it just sounds like they’re tempting fate. (Speaking of bad luck, spare a thought for French gymnast Samir Ait Said. Not only did he genuinely break his leg — the photographs are horrifying — but then, the medical attendants actually dropped his stretcher while loading him on the ambulance.) For those attempting the Produnova, on the other hand, a broken bone is the least of the dangers. Named after the first gymnast who was able to pull it off, the Produnova, for all intents and purposes, ought to be called the Vault of Death.

A short sprint leads into a front handspring that launches the gymnast skyward. What follows is a mid-air double somersault. But what makes or breaks the move — and, indeed, the gymnast — is the landing. The high difficulty rating of the Produnova is not just because it is tough to execute. Land on your feet and you score well. Land on your head or neck, and you risk paralysis for life — or death.

Gauri Karmakar has never seen her daughter perform the Produnova. She is not sure how she would feel if and when she does so. But she does know the move is scary; death-defying even. “Yes, it does scare me,” she says. “But my fears won’t help Dipa.”

Gauri Karmakar is in Agartala. Daughter Dipa, in Rio de Janeiro, where on Sunday evening, she attempted the difficult vault. It did not quite go according to plan — her hip ended up touching the mat. But it was good enough for the 22-year-old to scrape through in eighth place to the vault finals. In the process, Dipa Karmakar became the first Indian gymnast to qualify for the finals at an Olympics. Come August 14, the day of the final, it could all boil to whether Dipa can land the Vault of Death.

It wasn’t the first time Dipa had attempted the move — in fact, the Indian is one of only five gymnasts the world over who have successfully performed it. Apart from her and Yelena Pradunova, the move’s Russian namesake, there are only three others who can claim to have landed it — Dominican Yamilet Pena, Fadwa Mahmoud of Egypt and Uzbekistan’s Oksana Chusovitina, who has also reached the final. For Americans at Rio 2016, among whom Simona Biles is the gold medal favourite in Karmakar’s event, the vault is just not worth the risk.

For Karmakar, though, taking risks was not a choice — it had to be done. She started early. At age five, her father, Sports Authority of India (SAI) weightlifting coach Dulal Karmakar, took her to Soma Nandi, a SAI gymnastics coach. Nandi’s husband Bisbeshwar went on to become Dipa’s lifelong coach. However, Agartala was not exactly brimming with state-of-the-art infrastructure. So, Dipa trained using stacking mats meant for judo and karate.

Her flat feet did not make things easy. Systemic apathy only made it worse. Initially, Dipa was not one of the beneficiaries of the Target Olympic Podium (TOP) scheme, launched by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports to provide financial assistance to Olympic aspirants. It was only once she qualified for Rio that her name was included in the TOP list. That was also when SAI set up a foam pit for her to practice the Produnova at New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium.

All that hard work has yielded results in the recent past. First, there was the bronze medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Then came the bronze at the Asian Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Hiroshima last August. But it was the fifth-place finish at the World Gymnastic Championships last October that made her just the second Indian gymnast (after Debasis Mondal at Tokyo 1964) to qualify for the Olympics.

Now Dipa, who turns 23 on Tuesday, has reached the Olympic final. A medal, though, is a long shot. From her parents to the Nandis, everyone is proud but hoping for more. “The colour of the medal does not matter — I am dreaming,” says Soma Nandi. “Yes, it (winning a medal) is very difficult. But at this level, it is about who performs at that moment.”

There’s something delightfully confident in Dipa’s response to qualifying for the vault finals. “In practice, I perform way better than this,” she said. It’s the sort of self-assuredness we’re unused to hearing — no nervousness, no excuses; just the unwavering conviction that there’s more of which she’s capable.