Pranati Nayak: The daughter of a bus driver set to create waves at Tokyo 2020!

Pranati Nayak saw her father struggling to make ends meet through his income as a bus driver in the West Bengal state transport service. But her father, Sumanta Nayak, never backed off from supporting her dreams.

Nayak started her training in gymnastics for the first time at the age of six. Her mother was inclined towards yoga and she would initially think that gymnastics is much-like yoga and took interest in it. There were also times during her initial days of training, when she would sleep on the floor at the Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata, while her parents would take turns to stay with her so that she could train in peace.

It was then in 2003, with the help of her first coach Minara Begum, that the Midnapore-gymnast, would start training at the Sports Authority of India (SAI) in Kolkata.

"After training in SAI for a year-and-a-half, I could pronounce ‘gymnastics’," she told The Telegraph.

Nayak has since then has established herself as a fine prospect at national level, winning gold in the National Games in 2015 and has accumulated over 100 medals. Her first international success, meanwhile, came at the 2019 Asian Gymnastics Championship in Mongolia where she bagged a bronze medal.

She had, however, missed out on the Tokyo 2020 cut at the 2019 World Championships. Nayak had totalled 45.832 at the World Championships after scoring 14.200 in vault, 11.133 in floor exercise, 10.566 in bar and 9.933 in beam while she needed to score at least 48 to secure a quota for Tokyo 2020.

But it was only after a long-wait that she secured a continental quota for Tokyo 2020, which not only fulfilled her dreams, but also made her father recall all the hard times they went through.

"He (Sumanta Nayak) is ecstatic and has asked me to put in my best. In fact, he was in tears. When I couldn’t score 48 in the World Championships, he was the most heartbroken," she said.

In fact, it was her father, who created a specific structure, using bamboo sticks, during the lockdown to support her training as she didn't have access to the SAI facility.

Nayak, now, dream of bettering her idol Dipa Karmakar's performance (fourth-place finish at Rio 16) at Tokyo 2020.

When does Pranati Nayak's Tokyo 2020 campaign start?

Nayak will be first seen in action at Tokyo 2020 on July 25, Sunday, in the women's artistic gymnastic qualification event.