Gymnast Aruna clinches bronze, creates history
WORLD CUP 22yearold from Hyderabad bags her first international medal MELBOURNE:
Aruna Budda Reddy on Saturday created history by becoming the first Indian gymnast to win an individual medal at the World Cup as she clinched bronze in women’s vault event here. The 22-year-old Reddy, who hails from Hyderabad, scored 13.649 average points to win the bronze at the Hisense Arena here.
Tjasa Kysslef of Slovania won gold with a score of 13.800 while Emily Whitehead of Australia took 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 after the World Championships.
Dipa Karmakar, who finished fourth in 2016 Rio in 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 best international performance before today’s feat was the sixth place finish 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 tomorrow. 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 tomorrow.
The 2010 Delhi CWG and 2014 Asian Games bronze medallist Ashish Kumar will also feature in the men’s vault event final round on Sunday.