Yulo earns shot at 3 gold medals

PARIS – Carlos Yulo took things a bit loose, not putting pressure on himself and just enjoying the moment in his initial show at Bercy Arena Saturday.

Calm and composed, the Filipino ace gymnast safely landed in three finals – all-around, floor exercise and vault.

“Very relaxed si Carlos, but we will be in full energy and full force (in the finals),” said Gymnastics Association of the Philippines president Cynthia Carrion-Norton.

The 24-year-old Yulo, holder of two gold medals in the FIG World Championships, goes for Olympic gold and glory as he plunges back into action in the all-around final on Wednesday, on floor exercise final Saturday and vault final Sunday.

The pocket dynamo from Leveriza, Manila, inspired by the support of friends and followers, is optimistic he can make it, following the feat of weightlifting golden girl Hidilyn Diaz.

The gymnastics chief believes Yulo can win one or even two golds.

“In overall (all-around) mahirap, even bronze mahirap. Pero sa floor magaling siya. He can win at least one gold, or maybe two if he does well in the vault,” said Carrion.

“He’s relaxing now. He’s happy. He’s off Sunday then full force, training and training, from Monday onwards,” said Carrion of Yulo, men’s floor exercise champ in the 2019 World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany and vault ruler in the 2021 edition in Kitakyushu, Japan.

Actually, Subdivision 3 action in the qualifying phase was still up Sunday afternoon but it wasn’t likely to make a dent on the standings where Yulo was No. 2 in floor exercise, No. 6 in the vault and No. 9 in individual all-around.

The top eight on each apparatus advance to the final while the top 24 on all-around will be the performers on the medal play.

Interestingly, Carrion sees a two-man duel for the floor exercise gold between Yulo and Filipino-British Jake Jarman.

Jarman, a 22-year-old bet whose mother is from Cebu, topped the qualifying with a score of 14.966, followed by Yulo (14.766), then Rayderley Zapata of Spain (14.600), Ukrainian Illia Kovtun (14.533), British Luke Whitehouse (14.533), Chinese Boheng Zhang (14.466), Israeli Artem Dolgopyat (14.466) and Kazakh Milad Karimi (14.433).

In vault, Yulo was good for sixth with 14.683. During the 2021 Tokyo Games, Yulo narrowly missed the bronze with 14.716. In winning the gold in the worlds in Kitakyushu, the Filipino bet drew 14.916.