ONLY 24, Paris Olympics double gold medalist Carlos Edriel Yulo has it all planned out in the event he makes it again to the next two Summer Games, according to Philippine Olympic Committee Secretary General Atty. Wharton Chan.
“I had a heart-to-heart talk with Caloy after he won his second gold medal and he told me he already has a general plan should he make it to the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles and 2032 in Brisbane,” Chan said after the victory party hosted by Hilton Manila Hotel last Tuesday.
Chan, also the POC legal counsel and kickboxing secretary general, witnessed the ace gymnast capture two mints at the Bercy Arena to highlight the country’s most successful Olympic campaign that marked the Philippine centennial participation in the quadrennial sportsfest.
“Yulo informed me that once he qualifies for Los Angeles, he intends to compete in the individual all-around once again and try to reach as many apparatus finals as he can,” the POC official said.
The pint-sized phenom hopes to emulate his role model, Japanese multiple world and Olympic champion Kohei Uchimura of Japan, Chan said, which explains why he wants to compete in the taxing individual all-around event featuring all six apparatuses at the LA Olympics.
Yulo once shared the podium with Uchimura as both bagged the gold medal with the same score of 14.180 points in the floor exercise in the 2019 All-Japan Senior Championships.
Should Yulo meet the grade anew in the 2032 Brisbane Summer Games, Chan disclosed that the athlete aims to focus on three events — the floor exercise, vault and parallel bars — where he has excelled at the World Championships.
Yulo captured his first mint on the global stage by ruling the men’s floor exercise in the 2019 edition of the FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany.
He captured the gold in the floor exercise and won a silver in the parallel bars two years later at the worlds in Kitakyushu, Japan, plus a silver and a bronze, respectively, in the vault and floor exercise in the next worlds in Liverpool, England.
“Yulo knows by the time of the Brisbane Olympics he will be 32 so he will be strategic in competing in the events where he can win medals,” Chan said.
