Tripura's Dipa emerges at top with five gold medals

Tripura's Dipa Karmakar sparkled in the gymnastics arena clinching four gold medals today to take her haul to five, the highest by any gymnast in the 34th National Games here.

After taking the all round individual title yesterday, Karmakar clinched the girls' table vault, uneven bars, floor exercises and balanced beam during the day to emerge top in the individual medal list followed by Maharashtra's Aksheta Shate who took four gold medals in the Rhythmic gymnasitics on Thursday.

"This is the first time that I have participated in a national games, and am very happy to have won five gold medals. The credit goes to my father and coach for grooming me as a gymnast," an elated Dipa told PTI soon after winning her fifth gold medal.

Commonwealth silver and Asian Games bronze medallist Ashish Kumar today won the gold in the ring while Jharkhand's Partho Mandal snapped the yellow metal in the Pommel Horse to give the host the lone medal in the gymnastic competitions. This was Kumar's second gold medal after he won the all round individual gold yesterday.

SSCB's Pawan Bhambore picked the gold medal in floor exercises while fellow teammate Zia-ur-Rahman took the gold in floor exercises.

Uttar Pradesh's Iqrar Hassan and SSCB's Raja Roy won gold medals in horizontal bar and parallel bars respectively. A total of ten out of twenty gold medals, in both men and women, were decided on the last day of the last three-day competition.

Following is today's medal standings in gymnastic competitions; Tripura- Four gold medals, UP- Two gold medals, three silvers and three bronze medals.

SSCB- Three gold, two silvers and two bronze medals, Jharkhand- One gold only, West Bengal- Two silver medals and one bronze medal, Maharashtra- One silver medal only, Punjab- One silver and one bronze medal.

Following is the overall medal table of the 3-day gymnastics competitions:

Maharashtra- Seven gold, three silver and four bronze medals
Tripura- Five gold medals only
SSCB- Four gold, three silver and two bronze medals
UP- Three gold, four silver and three bronze medals
Jharkhand- One gold only
Punjab- Four silver and three bronze medals
West Bengal-Three silver and one bronze medal
J&K- Two silver and one bronze medal
Andhra Pradesh- One silver and six bronze medals.