Aruna wins gymnastics bronze at World Cup

Team Udayavani, Feb 25, 2018, 11:53 AM IST

Melbourne: Aruna Budda Reddy created history by becoming the first Indian gymnast to win an individual medal at the Gymnastics World Cup as she clinched the bronze in the women’s vault event here.

The 22-year-old Aruna, who hails from Hyderabad, notched 13.649 points to win the bronze at the Hisense Arena here. Tjasa Kysslef of Slovenia won the gold with a score of 13.800 while Emily Whitehead of Australia took the silver with 13.699.

Another Indian in the final round, Pranati Nayak finished sixth with a score of 13.416.

The sport of gymnastics has a series of World Cup events in a year and they are second in importance to the World Championships.

“Aruna is now the first Indian to have won a medal in the World Cup and we are proud of her,” Shantikumar Singh, secretary of a faction of Gymnastics Federation of India, told PTI.

Dipa Karmakar, who finished fourth in the 2016 Rio Olympics in women’s vault event, has won a bronze each in the Asian Championships and 2014 Commonwealth Games but not at the level of a World Cup.

This was Aruna’s first international medal through she has taken part at the 2013 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships, 2014 Commonwealth Games and 2014 Asian Games and the 2017 Asian Championships.

Her previous best international performance was sixth place at the 2017 Asian Championships vault event. In all the other international events, she could not go beyond the qualification stage.

Aruna will also contest in the final round of the floor event on Sunday.

In other events, Rakesh Patra finished fourth in the men’s rings event. He is still in the fray for the final round of the parallel bars on Sunday.

The 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games and 2014 Asian Games bronze medallist Ashish Kumar will also feature in the men’s vault final after he finished sixth in the qualifying round.

Sixteen countries are featuring in the World Cup series event this year across two days of qualification with the top eight teams’ athletes on each apparatus heading to the finals.