New Delhi: Indian gymnasts returned with a rich haul of seven medals, including three golds, from the International Commonwealth Championships held at Perth, Australia from April 26 to 27.
According to a Sports Authority of India (SAI) statement, apart from three gold medals Indian gymnasts also bagged three silver and one bronze from the two-day event. While 2010 Commonwealth Games and Asian Games medallist Ashish Kumar won two gold medals for India, female gymnast Dipa Karmakar bagged the other yellow metal.
While Asish bagged his gold medals in his pet events -- men's floor exercise and vault, Dipa's yellow metal came in the women's vault.
Apart from the golds, Asish also won two silver medals in all around men's artistic gymnastics and parallel bars while Dipa pocketed the third silver for the country in women's balancing beam event.
India's lone bronze medal came in the team event of men's artistic gymnastics represented by Ashish, Rakesh Patra, Abhijit Shinde, Sanjoy Barman and Chandan Pathak. It may be recalled that since November, 2011, the Gymnastics Federation of India (GFI) has been derecognised by the Sports Ministry owing to dispute between two factions.
According to the SAI release, no authentic National Championships were held since 2011 and the gymnasts were in a dilemma about their future. With no platform to identify actual talents for preparation of the upcoming Commonwealth Games and Asian Games, the SAI claimed it conducted three selection trials under video coverage to handpick th side for the International Commonwealth Championships.
