Asian Gymnastics Championships 2024: Dipa Karmakar wins historic gold medal for India

India’s Dipa Karmakar scripted history by winning the gold medal in the women’s vault apparatus at the Asian Gymnastics Championships 2024 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan on Sunday.

This is the first time that 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 Karmakar herself accounted for one of these with a third-place finish in women’s vault in 2015.

Ashish Kumar, men’s floor exercise in 2006, and Pranati Nayak, women’s vault in 2019 and 2022, have been the other medallists for India in the competition.

In the women’s vault final at Tashkent, the 30-year-old Olympian posted an average score of 13.566 to finish ahead of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s Kim Son-hyang (13.466) and Jo Kyong-byol (12.966).

Earlier on Friday, Dipa Karmakar 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.

The Philippines’ Emma Malabuyo, who finished third with 50.398, obtained the only Olympic quota offer from the Tashkent meet.

However, the vault gold adds to Dipa’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, Turkiye, becoming the first Indian to ever win a gold medal at a global gymnastics event.