By KRISTEL SATUMBAGA
Carlos Yulo failed to qualify in the final round of his pet event, the mens’ floor exercise, but earned a spot in the vault of the artistic gymnastics in the Tokyo Olympics Saturday night.
Yulo’s bid to extend his dominance in the floor exercise where he won the world title in 2019 slipped out of his hands after scoring just 13.566 points to finish 44th.
The two poor landings early in his routine ended Yulo’s hopes – he was given scores of 6.600 in difficulty and 6.966 in execution.
He tried to make up by finishing clean, but still fell short with Israel’s Artem Dolgopyat topping the event with 15.200.
The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) explained those mishaps perfectly in a live tweet of Yulo’s performance:
“Double layout double full out, big step forward and looks like he puts his hand down. Lage step forward on second pass as well. Very ambitious routine. Front full to front 2/1. 3/1 with a shuffle back to end,” the tweet read.
Yulo, however, earned one of the eight spots in the vault finals after scoring 14.712 for sixth place behind Korea’s Shin Jeahwan (14.866).
He scored 14.766 on his first vault and 14.658 in the second for 14.712 total.
He was not as fortunate in the other apparatus by scoring 11.833 in pommel horse (69th), 14.000 in rings (24th), 13.466 in parallel bars (55th) and 12.300 in horizontal bar (63rd).
His all-around score of 79.931 was just good for 47th place.
Only the Top 24 gymnasts (with maximum of two per country) will advance to the finals.
