Pinoy gymnast swirls, twirls to personal best

STUTTGART – Continuing to improve by leaps and bounds, Carlos Edriel Yulo joined elite company in placing 10th overall in the men’s all-around finals of the 49th FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships at the Hans Martin Schleyer Halle here on Friday.

Relieved of the pressure of having to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Yulo displayed poise and elan in scoring a personal best of 84.048 points over the six apparatuses for another gymnastics milestone for the Philippines in the hotly contested event.

In a riveting duel between two Russians, Nikita Nagornyy scored 88.772 points to dethrone defending champion Artur Dalaloyan (87.165) for the all-around gold while Ukraine’s Oleg Verniaev (86.973) took the bronze.

“First time ko pong maka-iskor ng 84-plus kaya talagang mataas po iyon. Tagang masaya ako dahil duon,” said Yulo, smiling, after finishing 18th in the all-around qualifiers with 82.164 points last Monday that secured him a slot to Tokyo.

Had he not qualified then, Yulo’s 10th-place finish in the all-around finals would guarantee him of qualifying for Tokyo since the top 12 finishers, unless they previously qualified, would advance to next year’s Olympics. 

It was also a dramatic rise in the event for Yulo after merely finishing 23rd out of 24 finalists with a score of 77.464 points  in the previous edition of the blue-ribbon competition held in Doha, Qatar last year.

“The performance of Caloy is really outstanding considering that those in the top 10 are Russians, Chinese, Japanese and Americans, who are the best in gymnastics,” said Phl gymnastics chief Cynthia Carrion.