India's gymnast Aruna Budda Reddy made Indians and her country proud on Saturday when she created history as she won a bronze medal in women's vaults at the 2018 World Gymnastics held in Melbourne becoming the first Indian to clinch a medal at the gymnastics World Cup. She finished third with a average score of 13.649 completing her two attempts. Aruna finished behind gold medallist Tjasa Kysslef of Slovania with a score of 13.800 and Australia’s Emily Whitehead, who won silver with a score 13.699 in the finals, the other Indian competing at the tournament Pranati Nayak finished sixth with a score of 13.416.
Aruna also holds a black belt and along with that she is also a former karate trainer.
Reddy chose a difficulty level much higher of 4.800 in her second attempt but was able to score only 8.833 points which gave her total points of 13.633 and after the aggregation of both the scores her final score came out to 13.649 points. Aruna B Reddy dedicated her win to her late father Mr B Narayana Reddy who according to the dedicated daughter was instrumental in his daughter’s choice of gymnastics. Reddy’s father was the one who enrolled het at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium Hyderabad at the early age of 5 years. She also said that her father always wanted to see her win and if today he would have been alive he would have been really happy and proud.
The 22-year-old gymnast from Hyderabad took training under coach Brij Kishore and under his expert guidance only that the hard work of Aruna and her abilities blossomed ,Reddy will also be a part of India’s team at the Commonwealth Games to be held this year in Australia. In 2010 it was Ashish Kumar who made a mark for Indian gymnasts and I dian gymnastics by winning the country’s first-ever gymnastics bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games. Since 2010 the only gymnast to have represented India is Dipa Karmakar at the 2016 Rio Olympics, unfortunately Dipa missed out on a bronze medal.
The qualification stage witnessed Aruna finishing second after registering a score of 13.566 to reach the finals while her fellow Indian gymnast Pranati was fourth with an average score of 13.483 after completing her two attempts.
