India’s star gymnast Pranati Nayak has done the country proud as she won a bronze medal at the World Challenge Cup in Szombathely, Hungary. The two-time Asian Championships medalist won the third prize in the vault event, after she faced-off with Greece’s Athanasia Mesiri in a tie-break.
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Both Pranati Nayak, and Mesiri had registerd a score of 12.966 points to enter the tie-break, which the Indian won eventually. It was then that 28-year-old Nayak got the better of her opponent and scored 13.066 points. The girl from Greece could manage only 13.000 points.
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Meanwhile, the gold medal went to Hungary’s Greta Mayer with a score of 13.149 points, with Czech Republic’s Alice Vlkova winning the silver with 12.999 points. Nayak had performed a backward Tsukahara 720. In it, the gymnast takes a half turn on the springboard onto the vault table and then a push backwards. In this maneuver, the Indian score 13.066 points in the first attempt, and 12.866 in the second one.
Earlier, Nayak had qualified fifth for the final with a score of 12.850, and had pipped Olympian Dipa Karmakar also. The latter could not make it to the final and had finished ninth. Even in the final, only 0.383 separated the gold medal winner and eight-place finisher.
This performance by Nayak truly justifies her place in the Asian Games 2023 squad, where she will be the only gymnast from the country to participate. Earlier the sports ministry had set strict guidelines for a player to make it to the Asian Games 2023. Dipa Karmakar had missed the bus there.
In the men’s event, India’s Rakesh Patra, who had made it to the final of the rings, finished fourth. His name too was omitted from the Asian Games 2023 list recently.
