Tashkent, May 26: Top gymnast Dipa Karmakar on Sunday became the first Indian to win a gold medal in the Asian Senior Championships as she clinched the yellow metal in the women's vault event here. (More Sports News)
The 30-year-old Dipa secured an average of 13.566 in the vault final on the last day of competitions in U𝓡zbekistan's capital city.
North Koreans Kim Son Hyang (13.466) and Jo Kyong Byol (12.966) grabbed 🅷the silver and bronze medals re🌱spectively.
Dipa, who had finished fourth in the vault final at the 2016 Rio Olympics, had won a bronze medal in the same e🌼vent in the 2015 edition.
Ashish Kumar had won a bronze medal in individual floor exercise in 2015 Asian Championships. Pranati Nayak had also bagged a bronze each in the vault event in the 2019 and 2ღ022 editions.
"His🀅tory created at The Asian Gymnastics Championship. Inspirational, Di🦩pa! 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 201ജ8 FIG World Cup in Mersin, Turkiye, becoming the first Indian to ever win a yellow metal at a global gymnastics even🍨t.
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 i𝓡n the all-round category with a score of 46.166 here on Friday.
The Asian Champiꦡonship here is the final Olymꩲpic qualifier.
She had finished fourth in the va🌟ult final at the FIG Apparatus World Cup in D♔oha 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.
