WHILE the country’s main focus was on the national athletes competing in the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, gymnastics ace Carlos Edriel Yulo quietly left Manila last Sunday night to compete in the 52nd FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships starting this Saturday in Antwerp, Belgium.
Accompanied by Gymnastics Association of the Philippines president Cynthia Carrion and national coach Aldrin Castaneda, Yulo is eyeing a second straight ticket to the Olympics in the main qualifying competition for the Paris Olympic Games in 2024.
GAP deputy secretary general Rowena Eusuya, who heads the national gymnastics squad competing in the Hangzhou Asian Games, said in an overseas interview yesterday that Yulo will be joined in Belgium today by US-based Fil-Am gymnasts Alea Finnegan and Kylie Kvamme.
Both Finnegan and Kvamme qualified through the last Artistic Gymnastics Asian Senior Championships held last June in Singapore.
The floor exercise champion in the 2019 edition in Stuttgart Germany, Yulo bagged a silver in the men’s pole vault and bronze in the parallel bars in the Worlds last year in Liverpool, England.
Also a gold medalist in the vault and silver medalist in the parallel bars when the meet was held in 2021 in Kitakyushu, Japan, Yulo is also targeting a top five finish in the difficult men’s all-around event while gunning for gold medals in the men’s floor exercise, vault and parallel bars in the championships that will be held at the Sportspaleis in Antwerp.
The top eight in the men’s all-around event and top 14 in the women’s all-around event will advance outright to the Paris Olympic Games, according to Eusuya.
The pint-sized Pinoy dynamo has a good chance of making it since entries from Japan, China and United Kingdom have already qualified for the Paris Olympics after finishing 1-2-3, respectively, in the world meet in Liverpool.
Making it even easier for him is the fact that China is fielding its crack squad in the Hangzhou Asiad to boost its overall medal standings at home, Eusuya said
Yulo will go into action following dominant performances in the last Asian meet, winning golds in the men’s floor exercise, vault and parallel bars, silver in the individual all-around and a bronze in the horizontal bars.
