Carlos Edriel Yulo competing in floor exercise during day nine of the gymnastics championships. —AFP
Filipino Carlos Edriel Yulo has completed his journey from the Palarong Pambansa to world-class level Friday night.
The 18-year-old Yulo made history by winning for the country its first medal ever in the Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Doha, bagging the bronze in his favorite floor exercise.
The multiple Palaro champion from San Andres, Manila, tallied 14.600 points in the final, behind veterans Artur Dalaloyan of Russia (14.900) and Kenzo Shirai of Japan (14.866).
Already, the Gymnastics Association of the Philippines is banking on Yulo to deliver the goods in the Southeast Asian Games next year as well as qualify for the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.
In qualifying for the floor exercise and for Wednesday’s all-events, Yulo already scored a major breakthrough for the Philippines, which has not had a final qualifier in those events before.
Yulo is currently on a scholarship program in Japan, where he is expected to hone his skills further in his quest to punch a ticket to the Tokyo Games via several qualifying events in all around and separate apparatus meets starting next year.
He placed 23rd out of 24 competitors in the all-around after making the finals by placing 12th in the preliminaries. In the floor exercise, he was the fourth-ranked qualifier.
Yulo emerged from age-group events Batang Pinoy and Palarong Pambansa, where he garnered eight gold medals before he went to high school.
He won two golds while competing high school division.