MANILA – Filipino gymnast Carlos Edriel Yulo fell short of defending his gold medal in the men’s vault event of the 51st FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships on Sunday night in Liverpool, Great Britain.
The 2020 Tokyo Olympics campaigner settled for a silver medal finish in the apparatus with his 14.950 points, which was short of the 15.050 tallied by gold medal winner Artur Davtyan of Armenia.
The Malate, Manila native had a solid start in the finale and was on his way to retaining the gold medal until his aspirations were dashed by the strong performance of Davtyan.
Yulo, meanwhile, finished with a bronze medal in the men’s parallel bars after being defeated by gold medal winner Zou Jingyuan of China and silver medalist Lukas Dauser of Germany.
Just like in the men’s vault finale, the Filipino gymnast showed his accuracy in the championship round of the men’s parallel bars to garner 15.333 points to take the early lead.
Yulo, however, was dislodged from the top spot by Dauser, who finished with 15.500 points before they were both displaced by Zou, who garnered 16.166 points for his clean execution.
Earlier in the tournament, Yulo failed to land a medal finish in the men’s floor exercise after finishing at seventh place among eight competitors with his disappointing 13.300 score.
Giarnni Regini-Moran of Great Britain ruled the floor exercise with 14.533, followed by Daiki Hashimoto of Japan with a score of 14.500. Doi Ryosuke of Japan took the bronze with 14.266.
The 22-year-old Yulo also dropped to eighth and final place in the men’s individual all-around after just garnering 82.098 points in all six apparatuses to fall well short of a podium finish.
Yulo now has two gold, two silver, and two bronze medals in the history of the world championships. He has a record of seven golds and seven silvers in the Southeast Asian Games./PN
