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'Dipa is now comfortable executing the Produnova'

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'To be at an Olympic final is a very big achievement by itself' - Dipa Karmarkar's coach (3:55)

Dipa Karmarkar's coach Bisheshar Nandi says she has prepared well for her Vault final and now its her performance on the day that will make the difference (3:55)

Dipa Karmakar's coach Bishweshwar Nandi believes that Sunday's apparatus finals at the Rio Olympics is anyone's game, given that the eight competitors start with a "fresh slate".

Dipa had finished eighth in the qualifiers after scoring 14.850 points from her first two vaults, but Nandi is hopeful that Dipa's past experience in Rio, including a gold medal at a test event in April, will give her an edge over the others.

"We hope it [the Rio test gold event] will have an effect on her tomorrow," Nandi told ESPN. "Of the eight in the final, the first two-three contenders are just exceptional and I can't claim that Dipa is better than them; these girls are very good.

"But the final competition of eight is a fresh slate. In the world championship, Simone Biles, who had been No.1 in the team and all-round event, finished the vault at No.3. The person who the stars favour on that particular day will take home a medal. My hope is that Dipa will do well.

"As a coach, I cannot say for sure she will take home a medal, but anything can happen. As a coach, what I can say is that each of the eight vault finalists are potential medalists. To be at an Olympic final is a very big achievement by itself."

Dipa's composed confidence and execution of the Produnova, the vault with the highest D-(for difficulty)-value in the women's vault, has become her signature move.

At the qualifiers, Dipa scored 15.100 in the Produnova (7 for difficulty + 8.1 for Execution) and 14.6 in the Zamolodchikova (6 for difficulty + 8.6 for execution). In fact, during qualification, she was the only gymnast to successfully attempt the Produnova.

Nandi revealed that Dipa would be attempting two vaults in the final - the Produnova, and the Tsukahara 720, which consists of a half turn off the springboard onto the vault table, then a push backwards.

"We did a very serious practice. I told her that now that you are in the final, this is more serious and you have to try and sort out the errors you made in qualification, that is the aim of this practice," Nandi said.

"Try and get to do your routines better and we can get a better result. We have good feelings about it. We hope to do well in the final. We will try and do much better than what we have done in the previous round as well and hope that we will have a good result.

"I need to have her to do the Produnova a couple of times more. Before we came to the Olympics, we were able to practice the vault a lot at the great facilities given to us by SAI. And now no matter what people say, she is comfortable executing the Produnova vault. She is not afraid while doing it and she is able to execute it comfortably."

The question on everyone's mind is, does repeatedly practicing the Produnova take a physical toll on the body and knees?

"It's not like we talk to her about the load on her knees while doing the vault," Nandi explained.

"Also, it's not that it takes a lot away from her knees while performing this in practice in the run up to a competition. The stress is on the ankle and the back but she has practiced this so many times. Fortunately she is is far away from the impact of the vault being felt on either of those parts of the body at the moment."

Nandi said that he was overall pleased with Dipa's preparations for Rio, especially when pitted against the likes of Biles, who has been "doing this for many years".

"Gymnasts like Simone come from sports-developed countries which have very different training schedules from ours. They have four-yearly plans for the Olympics.

"Dipa's schedule has been completely different, as she qualified in the Test event in April. In May we started the SAI camp, and we have done three months of good practice at IG stadium in Delhi for this Olympics."