By KRISTEL SATUMBAGA
Carlos Yulo boosted his Paris Olympics preparations on Thursday, March 7, after advancing to the floor exercise final in the Baku leg of the 2024 FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Cup series in Azerbaijan.
The two-time world champion finished third in the 53-player preliminaries with a score of 14.333 for a chance at a podium finish in his first tournament since seeing action in the World Championships last September.
Registering with a 6.3 degree of difficulty, the 2020 Tokyo Olympian executed his routine flawlessly to earn 8.033 from the judges.
Japanese Kazuki Minami topped the qualifiers with 14.466 while Korean Ryu Sunghyun,who won the gold in Cairo and bronze in the Cottbus leg both last month, came in second with 14.366.
Also qualifying were Kazakhstan’s Milad Karimi (14.233), Brazil’s Yuri Guimaraes (14.166), Croatia’s Aurel Benovic (14.166), Yahor Sharamkou (14.166) and Ukraine’s Ilia Kovtun (14.066).
Yulo, however, only managed to get a reserve spot in the parallel bars final after placing ninth with a score of 14.500.
Kazuki Matsumi, who clinched the last ticket in the eight-team final, actually posted an identical score with Yulo but managed a higher score in execution. 8.6-8.2.
Yulo also failed to earn a finals ticket in the still rings after settling for 18th place with 13.633.
He continues his bid when he competes in the vault, horizontal bar and pommel horse on Friday, March 8.
Meanwhile, Fil-American Levi Jung Ruivivar also booked a spot in the uneven bars final after finishing sixth with 13.466 behind top qualifier Kaylia Nemour of Algeria (15.433).
Ruivivar hopes to get enough points to bolster her Olympic Qualification World Cup Ranking List, where she is currently at sixth.
