Yulo begins hunt for Olympic berth sans prized coach

MANILA, Philippines – Minus the one coach that made him the many-time world champion gymnast that he is now, Carlos Yulo sets out to claim a spot to next year’s Paris Games where he hopes to snare the one precious hardware that he still lacked — the Olympic gold medal.

The three-time world titlist from the Philippines sees action in the FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships unfurling Saturday in Antwerp, Belgium without his long-time Japanese mentor Munehiro Kugimiya after the two parted ways for over a month now due to personal reasons.

As everyone knows already, it was Kugimiya who took the 23-year-old Asian and Southeast Asian Games king under his care for around a decade ago and turned the latter into one of the most feared artistic gymnasts in the planet.

Temporarily taking over from Kugimiya is Aldrin Castaneda, according to Gymnastics Association of the Philippines president Cynthia Carrion.

Carrion said a new Japanese coach is expected to come in by January next year to handle Yulo.

While Kugimiya has told a group of select reporters more than a month ago that he would welcome Yulo back if the latter wants to, there’s a bigger chance it might just not happen.

Yulo, however, will try to set aside all the distractions and accomplish by whatever means possible what he originally set out for — book a seat to the Paris bus.

The qualification phase is set this weekend while men’s individual all-around finale is on Thursday.

The apparatus finals for floor exercise, pommel horse and rings are on October 7 while vault, parallel bars and horizontal bars are scheduled the next day.

Yulo skipped the Hangzhou Asian Games where he is a favorite to win multiple gold medals and millions of millions of cash incentives that would go with it just to get into the Olympics.

And there is hope he wouldn’t let his tumultuous relationship with Kugimiya get in the way.