MANILA – Filipino gymnast Carlos Edriel Yulo had gold and bronze medal finishes in the 2021 All-Japan Senior and Masters Gymnastics Championships in Yamagata, Japan, on Thursday.
The 21-year-old gymnast made a strong showing in his favorite gymnastics event of floor exercise, scoring 15.300 points to secure a gold medal.
However, Yulo fell short in the vault event, as his 15.000 points were just good enough for a bronze medal finish.
“Revenge the Tokyo,” wrote Yulo’s head coach Munehiro Kugimiya in a Facebook post with pictures of the Filipino gymnast’s holding his gold and bronze medals.
Regardless, the two medals were a strong rebound for the 4-foot-11 Yulo following a dismal performance last month at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, where he was projected to win a gold medal in the floor exercise but unexpectedly placing outside the target in the qualification round.
The 2019 Southeast Asian Games gold medalist, on the other hand, advanced to the vault finals but ranked fourth due to a bad landing on his first jump in the apparatus.
This tournament serves as a warm-up for the Filipino gymnasts ahead of the 50th FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Kitakyushu, Japan, from Oct. 18 to 24.
Yulo created history in the 2019 FIG World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany, when he became the first Filipino and male Southeast Asian gymnast to notch the world title in the floor exercise.
The Filipino athlete is set to defend his FIG gold medal in Copenhagen, Denmark, in July 2020, but the event was postponed before being rescheduled for later this year in Kitakyushu./PN
