Dipa Karmakar wins historic gold at Asian C'ships

Top Indian gymnast Dipa Karmakar on Sunday became the first from the country to win a gold medal in the Asian Senior Championships as she clinched the yellow metal in the women's vault event in Tashkent.

The 30-year-old Dipa secured an average of 13.566 in the vault final on the last day of competitions in Uzbekistan's capital city.

North Koreans Kim Son Hyang (13.466) and Jo Kyong Byol (12.966) grabbed the silver and bronze medals respectively.

Dipa, who had finished fourth in the vault final at the 2016 Rio Olympics, had won a bronze medal in the same event in the 2015 edition.

Ashish Kumar had a won bronze medal in individual floor exercise in 2015 Asian Championships. Pranati Nayak had also bagged a bronze each in vault event in the 2019 and 2022 editions.

"History created at The Asian Gymnastics Championship. Inspirational, Dipa! Congratulations on the #Gold," Sports Authority of India tweeted.

The gymnast from Tripura has also achieved another rare feat, a gold medal in vault at the 2018 FIG World Cup in Mersin, Turkiye, becoming the first Indian to ever win a yellow metal at a global gymnastics event.

However, Dipa, who returned to action last year after a 21-month suspension for a doping offence, is out of contention for the upcoming Paris Olympics. She finished 16th in the all-round category with a score of 46.166 on Friday.

The Asian Championship here is the final Olympic qualifier.

She had finished fourth in the vault final at the FIG Apparatus World Cup in Doha in April.

Earlier, she had skipped the World Cup in Cottbus, Germany (February 22-25) after finishing fifth in Cairo (February 15-18) World Cup.