GIVING the country honors through one’s excellence in sports is a rare opportunity for any athlete, and it became rarer still when one wins the gold medal in the Olympics twice in one weekend, which is what gymnast Carlos Yulo, 24, did this first week of August in Paris.
Yulo’s victory was seen by many Filipinos — even those with little understanding what a floor exercise or a vault is, or those who have not seen a performance in the parallel bars — as a national victory as well. Most Filipinos were ecstatic that Yulo won his choice events at the Paris Olympics, momentarily forgetting the humdrum problems of everyday existence.
Since success has many fathers, Carlos has many individuals and institutions to thank for his victory, but the unassuming young athlete must thank himself first for having the ambition, self-discipline and resolve to do better next, to improve his skills and mental makeup every time he failed in the more than a decade of trying his best to improve his craft.
‘The more important thing is for Yulo to continue being a model for discipline, courage, and hard work for his own generation of Filipino youth and beyond.’
Early on, Carlos had a bit of luck for having a grandfather (Rodrigo Frisco) who saw the potentials of a 7-year-old acrobatically gifted boy who grew up in Leveriza, Malate, Manila which is a short estero bridge away from the sports complex where national and regional athletes train. Frisco brought him for formal training at the Gymnastics Association of the Philippines (GAP), after which the boy Carlos joined local tournaments such as the Palarong Pambansa in Tacloban City in 2009.
Successive outings in Palarong Pambansa honed Carlo Yulo’s skills and earned him medals, until he dominated the Philippine National Games in 2011 with golds in the floor exercise, rings and parallel bars.
Soon, Yulo was ready to take on a bigger challenge at the international level. With coach Aldrin Castañeda guiding him, he seized gold medals in the floor exercise and parallel bars in the 2014 ASEAN School Games. When Carlos joined the International Junior Competition in Yokohama, Japan in 2015, his bronze performance in the vault behind Youth Olympic medalists Giarnni Regini-Moran and Yue Ma attracted attention, earning him a scholarship from the International Gymnastics Federation.
With serious financial backing from the Philippine Sports Commission and the MVP Sports Foundation, Yulo made his move to Japan in 2016 where he was coached by Munehiro Kugimiya with approval from GAP headed by Cynthia Carrion. The Japan Olympic Association offered Yulo to train in Japan where he eventually graduated in 2022 with an associate degree in literature at Teikyo University in Itabashi, Tokyo.
Words of encouragement and inspiration provided by his parents, brother and sister, girlfriend, Japanese coach, and other athletes and PH sports officials all contributed to Yulo’s success. Most memorable, of course, was from weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz, the country’s first Olympics gold medalist, who let Carlos hold her gold medal in Tokyo, encouraging him to get his own gold medal in the future, which became a reality in Paris.
Many material rewards await Carlos Yulo in Manila when he returns, including invitations to visit Malacañang Palace, the Senate and the House of Representatives, with the country’s leaders stumbling over themselves to give the new hero of Philippine sports the honor that he deserves.
The more important thing is for Yulo to continue being a model for discipline, courage, and hard work for his own generation of Filipino youth and beyond.
