Yulo under microscope in all-around finals

PARIS – From a three-day breather, Carlos Yulo returns to action Wednesday as among 24 participants in the all-around final of the 2024 Olympics artistic gymnastics competition at the Bercy Arena here.

As mere ninth placer in the qualifying round, Yulo isn’t among the top podium contenders.

But keen eyes will be on the Filipino bet as he performs his pet events.

It will be a preview to what could well be Yulo’s great Paris moment in floor exercise and vault in the weekend.

The all-around championship is expected to be a showdown among the Chinese and Japanese aces with Fil-British bet Jake Jarman considered as a dark horse.

Daiki Hashimoto has a shot at becoming the third Japanese to be back-to-back champ in this event. Sawao Kato achieved the feat in 1968 and 1972, then Kohei Uchimura replicated it in 2012 and 2016.

Shinnosuke Oka is another Japanese contender in the all-events topped by Boheng Zhang of China in the qualifying, with compatriot Ruoteng Xiao coming at fourth.

Also in the mix in the final are Great Britain’s Joe Fraser, Ukraine’s Oleg Verniaiev and Illia Kovtun, Italians Yumin Abbadini and Mario Macchiati, Americans Frederick Richard and Paul Juda, Swiss Matteo Giubellini and Florian Langenegger, Hungarian Krisztofer Meszaros, Australia’s Jesse Moore, the Netherland’s Casimir Schmidt and Frank Rijken, Kazakh Milad Karimi, Brazil’s Diogo Soares, Canada’s Felix Dolci and Rene Cournoyer, and Germany’s Nils Dunkel.

Zhang had a qualifying score of 88.597 as against Yulo’s 83.631.

Oka scored 86.865, Hashimoto 85.064, Xiao 84.898 and Jarman 84.897.