US gymnast Simone Biles (right) is congratulated by Uzbekistan’s Oksana Chusovitina after the women’s vault event final of the Artistic Gymnastics at the Olympic Arena during the Rio 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro on August 14, 2016. AFP PHOTO
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — Forty-one-year-old Uzbek gymnast Oksana Chusovitina had warned that she was ready to pull out the ‘vault of death’ in her bid to upstage US teen sensation Simone Biles in Rio.
But the gymnast who made history by qualifying for her seventh Olympic Games, failed miserably, ending up tumbling on her head in the Rio Olympic Arena.
Biles, just two years older than Chusovitina’s 17-year-old son Alisher, easily bagged her third Games gold by a 0.700-margin on Russian world champion Maria Paseka.
Indian gymnast Dipa Karmakar, 23, also attempted the vault and just missed the podium. Karmakar, the first Indian gymnast to compete in a final at the Olympics, finished fourth by just 0.150.
“I’m disappointed but I lost by only 0.2,” said Karmakar. “It’s no problem. This is my first Olympics. In 2020 I will get a medal,” added the 1.51m (4ft 11in) gymnast from Agartala, the first Indian woman to win a medal at the Commonwealth Games in 2014.
Named after Russian gymnast Yelena Produnova, the Vault of Death was first introduced in 1999, but is so dangerous some want it banned.
It involves a handspring double-front somersault, and has one of the highest degrees of difficulty rating a seven, but only a handful of gymnasts have attempted it in competition.
The judges gave the Indian credit for the vault which she landed on her bottom.
Karmakar received a final score of 15.066 — well behind Biles’s 15.966.
Chusovitina achieved 14.933 to finish seventh in the eight-gymnast field.