BOTHERED by a left elbow injury, newly-crowned world vault champion Carlos Edriel Yulo nearly missed competing in the parallel bars in the just-concluded 50th FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Kitakyushu, Japan.
“We were supposed to compete only in the floor exercise and the vault because I strained my left elbow badly after I injured it two months before the competition,” Yulo, 21, revealed yesterday from Japan in an online press conference hosted by the Gymnastics Association of the Philippines.
He said he could hardly move the elbow after falling and landing with it during practice for the horizontal bars last August.
He said he underwent an MRI scan that, fortunately, showed there were no broken bones and only strained muscles and ligaments.
“I had to take painkillers for a while and coach Mune (Japanese coach Munehiro Kugiymiya) said we might just focus on the vault and floor exercise if the injury did not improve,” the pint-sized gymnast said.
With the help of therapist Jumpei Konno, Yulo recovered enough to compete in the parallel bars, topping the qualifiers with a high record-breaking score of 15.556 points before scoring 15.300 points in the finals to secure the silver medal.
The silver capped a grand performance in his third straight world meet after he bagged the vault crown with a score of 14.916 points.
Despite his strong showing, Yulo, who fared poorly in the last Tokyo Olympic Games, said his redemption is far from complete until he qualifies for and competes in the Paris Olympics in 2024.
“Gusto ko po makabalik sa Olympics and win a gold medal there,” he said.
Earlier, Gymnastics Association of the Philippines President Cynthia Carrion said she is convinced that the sky is the limit for Yulo after his masterful performance last Sunday.
Carrion said Yulo, 21, will go for greater heights in the 2022 SEA Games in Hanoi and Asian Games in Hangzhou as well as the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
“No one can do it like him,” Carrion stressed during the online Philippine Sportswriters Association Forum yesterday.
Yulo, who won the gold medal in floor exercise during the 2019 World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany, competed in only three events in Kitakyushu, and missed the podium in his favorite floor exercise.
