Services won the men's team artistic gold in the Federation Cup gymnastics championship at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium on Tuesday.
Uttar Pradesh, which put up a strong fight, bagged the silver while Punjab took the bronze. The competition for the top honour was mainly between Services and Uttar Pradesh.
Starting with the rings, Services' gymnasts came up with decent performances in vault and parallel bars before one of the athletes, Siddarth, sprained his left ankle due to faulty landing.
He continued despite the injury to complete the floor exercise and pommel horse. Services slipped a bit in floor exercise.
“The Federation Cup was postponed twice and our gymnasts were not fully prepared due to that. Some of our athletes are in the National camp. With a second-string team, we put up a good performance,” said Major Vajjiram, the manager of the Services team.
The Uttar Pradesh gymnasts were very tidy and consistent. Aditya Singh Rana won applause for his flawless performance in the rings while Sumeshwar Singh Rana was solid in vault.
The organisers tried to make the experience better for the spectators by showing the scores (on one of the big screens) during the live telecast by Doordarshan.
However, flashing the excel sheet from the computer was of little help as the letters were too small to read from a distance.
The results:Artistic gymnastics:Men: Team: 1. SSCB 230.7; 2. Uttar Pradesh 230.1; 3. Punjab 216.9.
Individual all-around: 1. M. Shinoj 78.4; 2. Vikas Bhatia 76.5; 3. Aditya Singh Rana 75.5.
