CARLOS Yulo won’t go home empty-handed, bagging a silver and bronze medal, respectively, in the men’s vault and parallel bars Sunday night at the close of the 51st FIG Artistic Gymnastics Word Championships at the M&S Bank Arena in Liverpool, England.
Seeking redemption for his earlier lapses in the all-around and floor exercise events, Yulo gamely tried to defend his vault title but was eventually upstaged by top Armenian qualifier Arthur Davtyan, who took the gold by a hairline with a top score of 15.050 points.
Banking on his solid aerial routines and precise landings, the Armenian emerged as the new world champion by just .10 of a point over the Pinoy pocket dynamo, who tallied an average of 14.950 points on his two tries in front of an appreciative crowd at the packed arena.
Sharing the podium was Igor Radivilov from war-torn Ukraine, who settled for the bronze medal (14.733) in the blue-ribbon competition organized by the International Gymnastics Federation, known by its French acronym FIG, which drew 400 athletes from over 72 countries.
After a brief respite to give way to the next apparatus final, the women’s balance beam, Yulo was back in action and snared the bronze in the parallel bars with a score of 15.366 points in the event won by reigning Chinese titlist Zou Jingyuan.
The Tokyo Olympic men’s vault champ, Zou was head and shoulders above the rest, taking the gold for the third time, with German Alexander, the Tokyo Games silver medalist, once again playing second fiddle to the Chinese.
Yulo executed the ri se-gwang, a front handspring double pike one-and-a-half twist originated by North Korean Rio Olympic games men’s vault gold medalist Ri Se-gwang, on his first run at the vault that earned him a high score of 15.000 despite landing slightly out of bounds.
In the end, the .10 deduction for the mistake proved to be the margin of victory for his Armenian foe after the pocket-sized dynamo had 14.900 points on his second attempt, pegging his score at 14.950 based on the average of the two tries.
Yulo admitted later said in the post-competition interview that he was disappointed by his heartbreaking outcome in the vault and was still in the process of fine-tuning his execution of the ri se-gwang.
“My first vault is not ready yet. It was a great challenge for me, and great preparation for next year. I’m really happy that I made it, even though it’s not gold in the end, it’s (still) silver,” Yulo said.
“It’s really different when you get (the) gold, but it is what it is, and I accepted that,” he added, “and my second vault was not good. I really focused on my first vault. It was really stressful.
“It’s not that easy to get a gold medal. There are a lot of good gymnasts, I know that and I appreciate their craft. I want to win, but it is what it is. I cried a lot, I really cried a lot. I felt sad. But I have to move on and accept it.”
Given the lofty goals he set before the worlds, the country’s most bemedaled athlete in the Vietnam Southeast Asian Games last May fell short of his own expectations of a top six finish in the all-around and a gold medal each in the floor exercise, vault and parallel bars.
Yulo placed eighth in the men’s all-around and wound up seventh in the floor exercise, an event he won at the 2019 world meet in Stuttgart, Germany.
He maintained his record of winning a medal in his fourth straight world stint, starting with a bronze medal in the floor exercise in the 2018 edition in Doha, Qatar. Last year, in Kitakyushu, Japan, Yulo garnered a gold in the men’s vault and silver in the parallel bars.
Yulo, Japanese coach Munehiro Kugimiya and Junpei Kono, the athlete’s longtime physiotherapist, left for the Japanese capital early Monday morning, according to Gymnastics Association of the Philippines President Cynthia Carrion.
