Gymnastics World Cup: Pranati Nayak wins bronze, Dipa finishes fifth

Pranati Nayak clinched the bronze medal in the women's vault event at the FIG Apparatus World Cup in Cairo, Egypt on Saturday.

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

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 a technicality.

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

Earlier in the qualification round on Friday, Dipa had finished ahead of Pranati scoring an aggregate of 13.449 points. Dipa finished third in qualification while Pranati finished seventh with a score of 13.166.

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).