By MARK REY MONTEJO
Carlos Yulo continued his dominance, this time, winning his pet event — the floor exercise — to cop his second gold medal in the 2024 AGU Artistic Gymnastics Asian Championships in Tashkent, Uzbekistan on Saturday, May 18.
Competing first in the said apparatus, the two-time world champion displayed grace in executing difficult routines to tally 14.933 that set the bar high for his succeeding rivals.
Kazakhstan’s Milad Karimi bagged the silver in 14.600 while China’s Zhang Yanzhi took home the bronze in 14.200.
Other Filipino bet John Ivan Cruz, meanwhile, came up short of a podium finish and settled for fourth place with 13.966.
Fans already anticipated Yulo to rule the event after the diminutive pride of Manila put up a dazzling performance in the qualifying round where he tallied a superb 15.233.
Last Thursday, May 17, Yulo finally captured the elusive gold medal in the men’s individual all-around with 84.931 points, beating Karimi (84.632) and crowd favorite Abdullah Azimov of Uzbekistan (82.431).
The twin victories were enough to boost Yulo’s confidence heading to the 2024 Paris Olympics where he hopes to make it to the podium this time after an unsuccessful attempt at the 2020 Tokyo edition.
He hopes to add another gold in his war chest when he competes in the still rings later in the day, and in vault, parallel bars and horizontal bar on Sunday, May 19.
Prior to this, Yulo also snagged a gold and a silver medal in the FIG Apparatus World Cup in Doha, Qatar last month.
