Pranati Nayak becomes third India to medal at FIG Apparatus World Cup

Cairo: Indian gymnast Pranati Nayak clinched the bronze medal in the women’s vault event at the FIG Apparatus World Cup, a Paris Olympics qualifying event, in Cairo on Saturday.

The 28-year-old Pranati scored an aggregate of 13.616 points to stand on the podium.

Another Indian in the final round, Dipa Karmakar, who had finished fourth in the 2016 Rio Olympics, signed off in the fifth spot in the eight-women final with a score of 13.383.

Democratic People’s Republic Korea’s An Chang-Ok snatched the gold with a score of 14.233 while Bulgarian gymnast Valentina Georgieva took home the silver. She had the same points (13.616) as Pranati but finished ahead of the Indian on technicality.

Pranati, thus, became only third Indian woman to win a medal at the FIG World Cup after Aruna Budda Reddy (2018) and Dipa (2018).

In the qualification round, Dipa had finished ahead of Pranati.

Dipa had scored an aggregate of 13.449 points to finish third in the qualification round while Pranati qualified for the final after finishing seventh with a score of 13.166 on Friday.

The Cairo event is the first of four legs of the FIG Apparatus World Cup 2024 series. Points from the best three performances across the four legs will be considered.

The two highest-ranked gymnasts per gender for each apparatus, provided they have not already made the cut, will qualify for the Paris Olympics.

The remaining three legs will be held in Cottbus, Germany (February 22 to 25), Baku, Azerbaijan (March 7 to 10) and Doha, Qatar (April 17 to 20).