By REY C. LACHICA
PARIS – As far as the Philippines is concerned, every Juan dela Cruz can now proudly call the 2024 Paris Olympics by its other name — the Great Carlos Yulo show.
And why not.
The 4-foot-11 dynamo stood tallest anew, winning the vault finals with another powerful performance to emerge as one the best performers of the 2024 Paris Olympics that happened on a glorious Sunday, Aug. 4, at the famed Bercy Arena here.
Fittingly, Yulo’s magical moment came in the year the country marked its 100 years of participation in the greatest sporting event on earth.
On account of his scintillating performance – especially in his first attempt – Yulo, 24, tallied 15.116 to become the first male gymnast to win two golds in a single edition in a long while.
Yulo is sure to go down as the greatest Filipino Olympian bar none, arguably better than weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz, who nailed the country’s first gold in the 2022 Tokyo Games.
Just like in his victory in the floor exercise the other day, Yulo clutched his head in disbelief, and once again, he shed tears of joy while his seven rivals went on to mill around and congratulate him.
It was another huge day for Team PH as boxer Nesthy Petecio assured herself a bronze after fashioning out a sweet win over a taller Chinese opponent.
Yulo looked smart and beautiful in his first vault after completing his Ri Ser Gwang, a handspring double front half out. With almost a perfect landing, he got 15.433.
His second vault was equally spectacular, coming through with a Kasamatsu double twist for a 14.000.
Armenian Artur Davtyan finished second 14.966 and third was British Harry Hepworth who beat Fil-British Jake Jarman by a slim margin after tallying 14.966.
Jarman, whose mother is a Filipina, managed only 14.933.
Petecio on-track
Shorter by two inches, but richer in experience, Petecio methodically cut down the 5-foot-6 Xu Zichun behind her razor-sharp straights and deadly hooks to score a 5-0 win, and advance to the semis of the 57kg division in the Paris Olympics on Sunday, Aug. 4, at the North Paris Park in Villepinte.
It was apparent, right from the start, that Petecio was determined to rule the contest as the Tokyo Games silver medalist jolted her rival with a barrage of heavy punches and occasional scoring cleaner shots to the head.
With her speed and strength, Petecio continued to bombard Xu in the second round to build a comfortable lead going into the third and final round.
With her imminent defeat, the Chinese went for a knockout – her remaining chance to snatch a win from the grizzled Filipina veteran.
Xu failed as Petecio proved elusive, as the Filipina ran rings around her Chinese opponent.
Petecio, on the other hand, still managing to score behind her wily moves to complete her remarkable win that once again drew louder chants of “Nesthy, Nesthy!”and “Laban Pilipinas!” from the crowd.
Over at the Stade de France, sprinter John Cabang Tolentino proved no match when pitted against the blistering speed of his rivals, and missed out an outright berth in the semis of the men’s 110m hurdles after placing sixth in his heat.
But overall, he was ranked low in the standings as he clocked only 13.66 seconds – not even enough to beat his personal best of 13.37 seconds which he logged during the PH Athletics Championships.
Born to Filipino parents, Tolentino, who grew up in Spain, needs to improve his time remarkably in the repechage on Tuesday if he is to advance to the next round before making it to the semis.
As expected, American Grant Holloway blew away the opposition, clocking an impressive time of 13.01.
