Ashish Kumar wins India's first gymnastics medal

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History was made on Thursday when Ashish Kumar clinched the bronze medal in the men's floor exercise to earn India its first Commonwealth gymnastics medal.

It is the country's first medal in gymnastics since the beginning of the Commonwealth Games in 1930.

The crowd roared as the 19-year old lad scored an impressive 14.475 points to snatch the bronze medal.

I am very happy to win the bronze medal. It was a new experience for me," said the gymnast.

Australia's Thomas Pichler bagged won the gold with 14.675 points and England's Reiss Beckford took the silver, scoring 14.625.

Kumar said he was "nervous" as he was aware of India's poor record in the sport.

"There was pressure to win a medal anyway. I will try my best to win a gold medal in the vaults category tomorrow and make my country proud," he said.

In hindsight, Kumar says he missed the gold because of a mistake he committed.

"My hand touched the line during a role in second line of my event which cost me a penalty of 0.5 points. Else, it was gold for me!"

The gymnast thanked his coaches and gave half the credit for his win to them.

"The coaches had a large role to play. Our coaches -- Vladimir Chertkov, Ashok Mishra and Praveen Sharma -- had a huge role to play. They gave us 18 months of their time and trained us. Half the credit of this win goes to them and rest to us," he said.

The team's Russian coach Vladimir Chertkov said gymnastics in India has a great future.

"Indian gymnastics is on the rise. This (win) is just the beginning. And it's is a good beginning. It doesn't matter what medal we got. All of it is hard work," said the Russian.

He added, "One year is a short time. We did it in one year through extreme hard work. Preparation has been fantastic."

He said his team is aiming for a top six finish in the team competition, and top ten in the individual all-around.

There are five gold medals to be won tomorrow. Kumar will be competing for the gold medal in the vaults category and India will get to compete in two more men's events, first the parallel bars and second in horizontal bar.

The women will compete in the beam and floor exercise.