Rare silver in Indian vault

This was no impolite departure from the otherwise appreciative gracious hosts that the Indian audience has been this last week. Just the undiluted ecstasy of a Gymnastics greenhorn nation as one of their unheralded own,flung his body twice over a concave table — twisted and turned it to achieve the most outrageous torques capable of a human body — and vaulted into their imagination with an average score of 15.312 over two vaults for a silver medal.

When Ashish Kumar was done for Day 2 of the apparatus finals,while competing in his favoured event — the table vault,Delhi and India’s TV audience had comprehensively shirked off the testimonial neutrality reserved for foreign gymnasts.

After Kumar’s feat of two Gymnastics medals and consistent scores in vault,India now has stakes in what was at the start of the CWG considered an impossible sport in which to win a medal in.

Luke Folwell — the newly crowned Commonwealth Games all-round champion on Wednesday and coached by Paul Hall at Huntingdon,attempting a Difficulty routine of 6.6 had notched up two steady vaults of 15.85 and 15.675 to set the bar high. Three sets of botched landings from as many competitors followed,but Ashish seemed in a zone of his own.

The crowd meanwhile launched into their supporting role hitting one straight crescendo,even as Ashish took off on his highest-difficulty 7 routine on the vault — a yeopike (or Tsukuhara) with two-and-a-half rotations,which lifted him like a spring— higher than he expected— soon after his left palm grazed the table and lightly balanced his body in flight,sending him into orbit. Ashish landed admirably,though,to once again clinch the day’s best 16.150 on his first vault.

On his second vault — attempting a 6.6 Difficulty,which was admittedly still work-in-progress — Ashish took off on the Roche (a double forward somersault and tuck with a hand-spring). Perhaps it was lack of confidence that added an ounce of nervous energy to his jump and spoiled his landing plans as his balancing hand touched the red-lane,and earned him a hefty penalty of 0.3. A modest 14.47 flashed.

Attempting one of the highest Difficulty has been Ashish’s prime reasons for success over the last week,and coach Vladimir Chertkov later said he could entrust absolute confidence into his hard-working ward.

“Normally,gymnasts perform this only competition to competition. We may have started on this only in June,but it is 16 years of body-conditioning that have helped him pull it off in major competitions and he now has two straight 16-plus scores,” the satisfied coach said.

Ashish also took this opportunity to drill in the importance of India making the trip to the World Championship at Rotterdam.

For the IG Stadium,it was a rare occasion when crowds ventured gymnastics-side,making the detour from hockey in the same premises — a much more popular sport. You couldn’t miss the silver lining to the clouded World Championships cancellation though.