AIMING to add more events in his Paris Olympic Games stint in July, Carlos Edriel Yulo opens his season while Fil-Am gymnast Emma Malabuyo tries to fortify her Olympic bid when they compete in the third leg of the FIG World Cup Series that began yesterday in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Yulo, who has qualified for the floor exercise event of the Paris Olympics despite a mediocre outing in last year’s World Championships in Antwerp, Belgium, is fresh from a two-week stint in England and is set to see action in all six apparatuses in the chilly Azerbaijan capital.
Accompanying the former two-time world champion is coach Aldrin Castaneda, who has been Yulo’s mentor since he parted ways with celebrated Japanese coach Munehiro Kugimiya after his stint in the Singapore Asian championships in June 2023.
After returning to the US to help her UCLA team in a key Pac-12 meet in the US NCAA Division 1 against Standford, Malabuyo, 21, is back in harness once again in pursuing her Olympic aspirations with the Philippine team.
She bagged silver medals in the floor exercise in the opening leg three weeks ago in Cairo, Egypt and hopes to duplicate or even surpass that performance to boost her Olympic prospects, on top of seeing action in the balance beam.
Joining them is Fil-Hawaiian teener Levi Ruivivar, who will compete in the women’s uneven bars, balance beam and floor exercise.
The preliminaries were scheduled to start yesterday.
With Olympic ranking points up for grabs for the apparatus events, the competition has attracted a stellar cast from 68 countries whose athletes are gunning to qualify for Paris through the series.
It could be make or break for Malabuyo, who told the San Francisco Chronicle in an interview posted on its website yesterday that if UCLA “makes it to the nationals — which conflict with the fourth leg in Doha, Qatar–she would stick with the Bruins.
“That means without an elite performance in Azerbaijan, Malabuyo’s Olympic dream will come to an end.”
The petite gymnast was unruffled by the prospect, saying: “The pressure feels different because this is just something that I am doing for myself…I keep reminding myself, ‘Okay, this is for you. So just enjoy the experience and have fun.”
Unlike Malabuyo, Yulo is bound to feel the pressure in his first major meet since his dismal outing in the world meet, considering the elite field he is up against.
He may encounter stiff opposition in his forte, the floor exercise, where South’s Korea’s Ryu Sung-yun has topped the previous two legs and could seal the deal with another gold-medal finish in the Azerbaijani capital.