by Kristel Satumbaga
Carlos Yulo bolstered his preparations for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics when he qualified in the men’s individual all-around final in the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Doha, Qatar last Monday.
The 18-year-old Yulo finished 12th among 292 gymnasts with a total score of 81.230 to join two-time world champion Xiao Ruoteng of China, 2016 Rio Olympics medalist Nikita Nagornyy of Russia and 2018 Asian Games medalist Sun Wei of China, among others.
Only the top 24 gymnasts advanced after the crucial two-day preliminaries.
Yulo also qualified in the floor exercise where he placed fourth with a score of 14.766 and was a reserve in the vault after finishing ninth with 14.499.
The all-around final is being played at presstime while the apparatus finals are scheduled tomorrow.
Yulo, who fell short of his medal campaign in the recent Asian Games in Indonesia last August, has been training intensively in Japan under a Japanese coach after accepting a training and scholarship program from the Japanese Olympic Committee.
He made waves last March after bagging a silver medal in the men’s floor event of the 2018 Doha World Cup.
