Gymnast Aruna clinches bronze, creates history
The 22yearold becomes third Indian to bag medal at world level
MUMBAI: Aruna Budda Reddy, the 22-year-old from Hyderabad, Telangana, on Saturday created history when she became the first Indian gymnast to win a World Cup Series medal. Aruna bagged a bronze at the World Cup Gymnastics Series event in Melbourne, finishing third in vault with a score of 13.649 on the first day of the finals at the Hisense Arena.
Aruna made it to the vault final with the second-best score in qualifying. She had a score of 13.566 in her two attempts. Aruna had an excellent vault in her first attempt, bagging 4.600 for difficulty and 9.066 for execution. She could not repeat the same in her second attempt as her execution was not perfect and she got 4.800 and 8.666 respectively; thus finishing 0.383 points behind Australia’s Emily Whitehead (13.949).
Aruna is the third Indian gymnast after Ashish Kumar and Dipa Karmakar, who won bronze in the 2010 and 2014 Commonwealth Games respectively, to win a medal in competitions organised by the international gymnastics federation (FIG). Her achievement is all the more credible because she was participating in the World Cup Series, which is an invitational event involving 16 selected gymnasts across the world.
In the vault final involving eight competitors, Aruna managed a score of 13.649 to finish third behind Tjasa Kysslef of Slovenia (13.800) and local star Whitehead (13.699). Aruna bagged 4.600 and 9.066 for her first attempt and 4.800 and 8.966 for her second.
Kysslef, who was placed eighth in the qualifying round, surged to the top of the podium with two superb attempts, which earned her 4.800 and 9.000 for first and 5.000 and 8.800 for her second.