Yulo back on top

MANILA, Philippines — The king has returned.

After a string of misfortunes on the world stage, 2019 world champion Caloy Yulo reclaimed his throne by seizing the gold in his pet event, the floor exercise, in the Doha, Qatar leg of the FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Cup Series last Friday.

The 22-year-old gymnast from Leveriza in Manila delivered a breathtaking performance that earned him an impressive score of 14.833 from 8.333 on execution and 6.5 on the level of difficulty.

He did almost the same routine – 2.5 twist to front double pike, triple full side pass, 1.5 twist to Randi, and a 3.5 twist to close – he performed in the qualifying round where he scored 14.500 in the qualification phase Wednesday.

Only this time, it was way better.

So much better that he left the rest of the field enthralled and left to eat dust including Japanese Kazuki Minami and Briton Luke Whitehouse, who settled for the silver and bronze with a 14.200 and 13.966, respectively.

Never mind that Artem Dolgopyat of Israel, the Olympic gold medalist and winner of the kickoff leg in Cottbus, Germany, who topped the qualifier with a 14.600, withdrew from the finals due to nagging knee issues.

In his absence, the Israeli was spared of Yulo’s wrath.

And Yulo isn’t even done.

The 2022 Southeast Asian Games quintuple gold winner will have a chance to make it a golden treble as he was competing in the parallel bars and vault, which he topped in the qualifiers with scores of 14.933 and 14.800, respectively, at press time.

The recent feat made up for the heartaches he faced in the floor exercise in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and the 2021 and 2022 World Championships in Kitakyushu, Japan and Liverpool, England where he went home empty-handed.

But on this day in Doha, the pocket-sized wonder from the Philippines was back where he belongs.