Thaindian News

By Meena Kar
Oct 24, (THAINDIAN NEWS) Alicia Sacramone bagged a gold medal on the vault and a silver medal in the team competition in the World Gymnastics Championships on Saturday. That tied her with Shannon Miller and Nastia Liukin for bagging the highest world medal win by an American female gymnast.

Winning the Vault event was however not a cake walk for the 22 year old Alicia Sacramone, as she faced a tough competition from the Russian Gymnast Aliya Mustafina. Alicia Sacramone, first performed a front handspring Rudi vault, with a hop on landing, that gave her the score of 15.400. This was followed by her second vault performance was a Yurchenko double, which earned her 15.000 points. With an average score of 15.200, she predicted to be a winner. However, Aliya Mustafina, gave her a very tough competition as she scored an average of 15.066, followed by Brazilian Gymnast, Jade Barbosa, with an average score of 14.799. The decision of the judges, to make Alicia Sacramone the winner was challenged by the 16 year old Russian contender, and she had to wait for about 30 minutes to hear the final decision. However, the final decision also came in her favor, and Alicia Sacramone got the gold, thereby becoming the second U.S. woman to win a world vault title. She collected four vault medals, and a total of nine World Gymnastics Championship medals.

Aliya Mustafina, although a very competent gymnast, and has won four medals, in the World Championship, reportedly got the silver, because of certain technical deficiencies in her performance. Moreover, some sources say that Alicia Sacramone is a much senior player and has been participating in this event since 2005.