Agartala: Tripura’s Dipa Karmakar scripted history by winning the gold medal in the women’s vault apparatus at the Asian Gymnastics Championships 2024 in Tashkent. Chief Minister Dr Manik Saha congratulated her for becoming the first-ever Indian gymnast to achieve the feat.
Saha called Dipa and her coach, Bishweshwar Nandi, and later wrote on social media, “Proud moment for India. Congratulations to Dipa Karmakar for becoming the first-ever Indian gymnast to win a gold medal at the Asian Championships with an impressive score.”
Sports Authority of India (SAI) officials here said this is the first time an Indian gymnast managed to win a gold medal in any event at the Asian Championships.
Previously, Indian gymnasts managed four medals, all bronze, at the continental championships. Dipa, herself, accounted for one of these with a third-place finish in the women’s vault in 2015.
In the women's vault final at Tashkent, the 30-year-old Olympian posted an average score of 13.566 to finish ahead of North Korea's Kim Son-hyang (13.466) and Jo Kyong-byol (12.966).
Dipa Karmakar on Friday finished 16th in the all-round category in Tashkent with a score of 46.166 and failed to secure a Paris 2024 Olympics quota for India in gymnastics. However, the vault gold adds to Dip’s already impressive list of firsts for Indian gymnastics.
She is also the first Indian female gymnast to compete at the Olympics and finished a credible fourth in women’s vault at Rio 2016 - the best display by any gymnast at the Summer Games to date.
She also won the women’s vault gold medal at the 2018 FIG World Cup in Mersin, Turkey, becoming the first Indian to ever win a gold medal at a global gymnastics event.