Dipa Karmarkar wins medal, hope for Indian women gymnasts

Four years after making her debut at the Commonwealth Games as a 16-year-old, Dipa Karmarkar grabbed a creditable bronze medal in women's vault at the 20th Commonwealth Games on Thursday. It was India's first medal of Thursday, though there were three Indian wrestlers in finals, already assured of medals.

The Agartala-born 20-year-old Dipa, who was seventh at the 2010 Games, had the poorest vault in the first round scoring a mere 13.633, the lowest among the eight finalists. Yet, she rebounded so strongly in her second vault that she scored 15.100, the best among the eight to come up with final average score of 14.366.

"It is a great feeling to get a medal from gymnastic because we have never done that in women's section. I knew I could do much better than the first vault and it turned out to be so," said Dipa.

The gold went to 16-year-old Claudia Fragpane of England, who had vaults of 14.766 and 14.500 for a score of 14.633. The silver was claimed by Elisabeth Black of Canada (14.433 and 14.433) for an average of 14.433.

The women's team had finished 11th and Dipa was 22nd in women's all-round final.

In the men's floor finals, Ashish Kumar, bronze medallist in the event in 2010, was sixth, as England's Max Whitlock won the gold and Canadian Scott Morgan took the silver.