Pranati Nayak hopes to give her best at Worlds despite hip niggle

Having won two international medals earlier this year, Pranati Nayak will be hoping to put up an impressive show at World Artistic Gymnastics Championships being held in Jakarta from Oct 19-25.Besides Nayak, Swastika Ganguly, Bidisha Gayen and Anoushka Patil are part of the Indian women’s team competing in the event and they will have their qualification round at the Indonesia Arena on Tuesday.

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While Ganguly, Gayen and Patil will participate in multiple events, Nayak, who trains under coach Ashok Mishra at Gymnastics High-Performance Centre in Bhubaneswar, will only compete in the vault. Sadly, she isn’t at her best after slightly injuring her hip during World Challenge Cup in Szombathely, Hungary, last month.“It was during the podium training that I felt a jerk on my hip and couldn’t give my best during the qualification round and failed to make it to the final round. After coming back to Bhubaneswar, I trained a little, but I mostly worked on my rehabilitation,” Nayak told TOI from the airport before leaving for Jakarta last week.As a result of her injury, she isn’t feeling confident either but wants to use all her experience to give a good effort.

“Whenever I train well, I feel confident ahead of my performances. But it wasn’t same this time because I had to spend a lot of time on my recovery after coming back from Hungary. However, I have taken part in lots of competitions over the years and I am looking forward to giving a good show,” added the Paris Olympian, who bagged a bronze at FIG World Cup in Antalya, Turkey, in March followed by her third medal at Women’s Artistic Gymnastics Asian Championships in June.As for the vaults though, she will be sticking to her old routines and not try anything new. At the Asian meet she bagged the bronze with Tsukahara 720 Twist with fixed landing and Handspring Pike Salto with a 360-degree turn. In Antalya, she also did the Handspring Tuck Salto with full twist, fixed landing.Meanwhile, even though Nayak couldn’t do much after coming back from Hungary, she did have a great experience during the training stint in Paris which went on for three weeks. “It was a whole new experience, and I got to learn a lot of new things, but we felt the absence of a physio,” added Nayak.It’s now all up to how she feels on the day of the competition and how her body reacts during the event. As for her coach, he just wants Nayak to give her best. After all, the big target is Commonwealth Games and Asian Games next year.