Ace gymnast Dipa Karmakar bagged the historic gold medal at the Asian Women’s Artistic Gymnastic Championship here in Tashkent on Sunday to become the first Indian to achieve the feat.
Chief Minister of Tripura Dr. Manik Saha on Sunday congratulated Dipa Karmakar for becoming the first-ever Indian gymnast to win a gold medal at the Asian Championships held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
After the victory, Dr. Saha personally called Dipa and her coach, Bishweshwar Nandi, to congratulate both of them and wish them more success.
In a social media post, Dr Saha wrote, “Congratulations to Dipa Karmakar for becoming 1st ever Indian gymnast to win #GoldMedal at Asian Championships held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan with an impressive total score of 13.566.”
In the final of the individual vault, karmakar finished at the top among eight gymnasts with an average score of 13.566. In both her attempts, the 30-year-old received identical scores of 13.566.
North Koreans Kim Son Hyang (13.466) and Jo Kyong Byol (12.966) bagged the silver and bronze medals, respectively.
Earlier, Karmakar had won the bronze medal in the same event in Hiroshima in 2015. Besides, Indian gymnasts had won three more medals at the Asian Continental Championships, but all were bronze medals. Apart from Dipa Karmakar, Ashish Kumar (men’s floor exercise in 2006) and Pranati Nayak (women’s vault in 2019 and 2022) have been India’s other medal winners at the competition.
Dipa is also the first Indian female gymnast to compete at the Olympics and won a respectable fourth place in the women’s vault at Rio 2016 – the best performance by any gymnast from India at the Summer Olympic Games to date.
In addition, she won the women’s vault gold medal at the 2018 FIG World Cup in Mersin, Turkey, becoming the first Indian to win a gold medal at a global gymnastics event.
She became a household name in the country after finishing fourth in the vault final at the Rio Olympics in 2016. Karmakar also bagged a bronze medal in the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in 2014.
Karmakar returned to action last year after serving 21 months ban following a positive test for a banned substance. (Edited)
(Tripura, Tripura News)
