New Delhi: Gymnast Pranati eyeing good show in World Championships

New Delhi: Pranati Nayak's bronze-medal winning feat at the Asian Championship has fuelled her Olympic dreams and the Indian gymnast says she will now look to put up a good show at the World Championship to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Games. The 24-year-old Indian clinched the bronze in vault event with a score of 13.384 at the Senior Asian Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia last week. It was a culmination of years of hard work for Pranati, who had qualified for the finals of Asian Games last year only to finish eighth in the vault event.

"I have been qualifying in the finals but I was not able to win any medal. So it gives me a lot of happiness to clinch this medal after such near misses," Pranati told PTI in an interview. "In the final, I didn't go for the 720 vault which I had done at Asian Games, I did Tsukahara 360. The girl who was at third position had less difficulty level than me. I gave my best and it got me better score than her and I won the medal." Pranati said she will now focus on her training to be in the best shape for the World Championship -- which is also an Olympic qualifier -- in Stuttgart, Germany from October 4 to 13.

A good performance can give Pranati her ticket to the Tokyo Olympics even though the road ahead will be a difficult one. Qualification for the Olympics is either on the basis of a cut-off point at the World Championships or aggregate of scores achieved over the Artistic Gymnastics World Cup series but Pranati has not participated in any of the World Cups so far.