Aruna Reddy creates history for Indian gymnastics

TIL Desk Sports/ Aruna Budda Reddy created history by becoming the first Indian to clinch a medal at the gymnastics World Cup when she took bronze in the women’s vault event here on Saturday. Aruna registered a score of 13.369 points to finish behind Tjasa Kysslef of Slovenia and Emily Whitehead of Australia who finished with gold and silver, respectively.

Kysslef had a score of 13.800, while Whitehead registered 13.699 in the finals. Pranati Nayak, the second Indian in the fray, finished sixth with an aggregate score of 13.416 after two attempts. This was the third gymnastics medal for India at the world level.

Ashish Kumar was the first Indian to claim a gymnastics medal when he took bronze medal at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi. Dipa Karmakar also took a bronze in women’s vault in the subsequent Commonwealth Games in 2014, thus becoming the first female Indian gymnast to clinch a medal at the world level.

Aruna had a good start in the final, scoring 9.066 points on execution after choosing a difficulty level of 4.600, which gave her a total of 13.666 She chose a higher difficulty level of 4.800 in her second attempt, but could score only 8.833 on execution, which gave her a total of 13.633 points. The aggregate of her two attempts were then taken, which gave her a final score of 13.649 points.