Gymnast Aruna vaults into history

Melbourne: Aruna Budda Reddy on Saturday created history by becoming the first Indian gymnast to win an individual medal at the Gymnastics World Cup, clinching a bronze in the women’s vault event.

The 22-year-old, who hails from Hyderabad, scored 13.649 average points to win bronze at the Hisense Arena here.

Tjasa Kysslef of Slovania won the 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 13.416. The sport has a series of World Cup events in a year and they are second in importance after the World Championships.

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

Dipa Karmakar, who finished fourth in the 2016 Rio Olympics in the women’s vault, 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 the day’s feat was a 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 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.

Ashish Kumar will also feature in the men’s vault event final round after he finished sixth in the qualifying round.