BANKING on his forte, the floor exercise, back-to-back world gymnastics champion Carlos Yulo paced the qualifying round of the men’s individual all-around event late Wednesday night in the 9th Asian Senior Artistic Gymnastics Championships at the Aspire Academy Gym in Doha, Qatar.
Yulo, who bagged a historic gold medal in the floor exercise of the 39th FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany in 2019, showed the way at the halfway mark of the men’s all-around qualifiers with an overall tally of 41.833 points.
As expected, the diminutive Filipino dynamo emerged tops in the floor exercise with 14.800 points, sixth in the rings (14.100) but 20th in the pommel horse (12.933), with the vault, parallel bars and horizontal bar qualifying events scheduled last night at the high-tech facility built to develop world-class athletes, particularly in the Middle Eastern region.
Nipping at the heels of Yulo, the country’s top athlete in last month’s Vietnam Southeast Asian Games with five gold and two silver medals, were China’s Yin Dehang and Yang Jiaxing, who scored 41.800 and 41.700 points, respectively.
Yulo’s national teammates, Juancho Miguel Besana (12.433) and Jan Gwynn Timbang (12.300) were running 30th and 33rd, respectively, in the all-around standings after three events featuring 41 entries.
The Asian meet is being held for the first time in two years after the 2020 and 2021 editions were scrapped due to the COVID-19 pandemic and has drawn elite gymnasts from 21 countries.
The competition also serves as a qualifying event for the 41st FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships scheduled Oct. 29 to Nov. 6 in Liverpool, England.
Yulo, who aspires to be a world and Olympic and all-around champion like Japanese star Kohei Uchimura, needs to finish among the top six gymnasts in the all-around event to book his ticket to the world competition.
The national men’s team also composed of John Ivan Cruz, Justine Ace de Leon and John Matthew Vergara was running eighth in the overall standings with 111.960 points.
The top five squads in the men’s team all-around will also make it to the world championships in Liverpool.
Following a dismal Olympic campaign in Tokyo, where he failed to qualify for the floor exercise final following his golden performance in Germany the previous year, Yulo redeemed himself with a stunning showing at the worlds in Kitakyushu, Japan last November.
