Yulo 8th in all-around, eyes gold in floor exercise

MANILA, Philippines — Caloy Yulo landed in eighth place and recorded his best performance in the individual all-around event of the Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Liverpool, England yesterday.

The pocket-sized wonder from Leveriza, Manila alternated scintillating performances with agonizing ones in the six apparatuses before winding up with an 82.098, good for No. 8 in the event topped by Olympic golden boy Daiki Hashimoto of Japan (87.198).

But the battle is far from over for Yulo, who was to shoot for the gold in his favorite floor exercise finals late last night (Manila time). He is favored to keep the gold and reign supreme, being the only one to breach the 15.000-point mark in the qualifying round with a magnificent 15.266.

Yulo is also scheduled to go for gold or golds in the vault and parallel bars tonight.

While the Hanoi Southeast Asian Games quintuple gold winner fell short from his initial target of sixth place or, if the stars had aligned, a dream podium finish, his eighth-place finish in the all-around was an improvement from No. 10 in Stuttgart, Germany three years ago.

“Overall, the experience was really good. I am in the top eight. It’s not bad and is still a big achievement for me,” said Yulo. “I am happy but at the same time I am disappointed.”

At first, Yulo appeared to be on course in replicating his third-place finish in the qualifying round days before when he bedazzled the field with a spectacular 15.166-point performance in his pet floor exercise to seize the early lead after the first rotation.

But he blew hot and cold from there as he had 11.90 in pommel horse, his Achilles’ heel, 13.800 in the rings where he faced the lords of it, 14.166 in the vault where he is reigning world champion in Kitakyushu, Japan, 15.166 in parallel bars where he was a silver winner also a year ago, and 11.90 in horizontal bar.

And it could have been better as he was poised for a wondrous performance in vault following a routine prepared solely to snare the gold in the individual finals for the second straight edition.

But he failed to land on his feet in the end, and cost him some precious points.

“I need to fix my mistakes when I get back home. Other things are not bad, although I could say vault was a positive mistake,” he said.