Kolkata: After grabbing gold in the All-Around Final in artistic gymnastics at the National Games earlier this year besides one silver and two bronze medals, Olympian Pranati Nayak is all set to compete in her first international event this year at the World Cup in Antalya, Turkey, starting Thursday.
Pranati will obviously be taking part in vault and she sounded quite confident of putting up a good show after a not-so-satisfactory performance at the nationals in Uttarakhand.
“I will be doing the Back 720 and trying to land the Front 360 in the vault. Since at least two-three months are needed to perfect a routine properly, I won’t be trying anything new,” said the gymnast who bagged a bronze medal in vault at FIG Apparatus World Cup in Cairo last year.
While doing well in Antalya will be high on her agenda, where she will also participate in balance beam besides vault, her main focus will be on making a mark at the Asian Games and the Commonwealth Games next year.
“If I can do the Back 720 and follow it up with the Front 2 540, I believe I can stay in contention for a medal,” added Nayak. “I have ample time to practice the two routines and I will start working on them in the coming days.”
And to make sure she is able to pull it off, the 29-year-old will have to work a lot on her strength. “Strength in my legs isn’t high and it has sadly gone down over the past few months. But I will be working on it and I am confident it will help improve my performance,” said the gymnast.
Her coach Ashok Mishra is also of the same opinion and said, “She needs to focus on her physical fitness because she couldn’t train for a long time due to injury, which affected her endurance level. To compete in the all-around, she needs to develop her endurance level and upper body strength for better vaulting.”
While the Asiad and CWG are long-term goals, the coach hopes to see Nayak grab a medal in the All-Around category at the Asian Championships. It’s going to be difficult, but considering all the support she is getting at the Gymnastics High-Performance Centre in Bhubaneswar, he sounded quite hopeful.
At the state of the art facility in the Odisha capital, she not only hones her skills under the watchful eyes of her coaches, but also plays the role of a teacher at times, guiding the kids whenever they make mistakes. Nayak after all shares a wonderful rapport with the kids and is quite an inspiration to them. Naturally, she does harbor a dream of becoming a coach one day, but for now, she just wants to give her best.
Nayak, however, is still hurting from how the Gymnastics Federation of India allegedly denied her participation in the FIG World Challenge Cup, which was scheduled from Oct 4-6 in Hungary’s Szombathely, and expects to be treated fairly in the coming days.