Pranati Nayak wins bronze in vault at Asian Gymnastics C’ships

Indian gymnast Pranati Nayak clinched a bronze medal in the vault final at the 12th Senior Women’s Asian Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Jecheon, South Korea, on Saturday.
The 30-year-old, who had earlier claimed a bronze at the FIG World Cup in Antalya, Turkey, in March this year, scored 13.466 to finish third on the podium.
China’s Yihan Zhang bagged the gold with a score of 13.650, while Vietnam’s Thi Quynh Nhu Nguyen took silver with 13.583.
Young Indian gymnast Protistha Samanta also impressed, narrowly missing out on a medal with a fourth-place finish after registering a score of 13.016 at the Jecheon Gymnasium.
With this performance, Nayak secured her third medal in the continental championships, surpassing veteran gymnast Dipa Karmakar’s tally of two. She had previously won bronze in the vault at the 2019 edition in Ulaanbaatar and again in 2022 in Doha.
Karmakar had won her first continental medal, a vault bronze, at Hiroshima in 2015 and followed it up with a gold in Tashkent earlier this year.
Nayak, a Tokyo 2020 Olympian, had posted a strong first attempt in the final, scoring 13.666, but a lower second vault of 12.866 affected her overall score.
She had entered the final after placing fourth in the qualification round with a score of 13.083. Protistha also made it to the medal round, qualifying with a commendable 12.916.