Flying start

Carlos Edriel ”Caloy” Yulo brought a certain swagger to the Southeast Asian Games on Sunday.

That much was expected. The diminutive star, is, after all, a world champion performing on a regional stage.
Yulo backed his strut by whipping up a bevy of top-rank performances that book-ended a pair of shaky shows for a gold medal finish in the men’s individual all-around artistic event of gymnastics at Rizal Memorial Coliseum in Manila.

But the 19-year-old athlete, who tallied a total of 84.900 to best a pair of grizzled Vietnamese, said he was actually jittery.

“This is different because this crowd was paying [attention] to me, unlike in Germany where nobody knew me,” Yulo said.Last October, Yulo punched a ticket to the Tokyo Olympics after a gilded run in the World Championships in Germany.

Listening to him speak, you’d think he was more comfortable competing abroad, where there is less pressure to deliver.
Watching him perform, however, showed otherwise.

Yulo carved out his best finish in floor exercise, dominating rivals in his pet event to rank first with 14.650 points. He was solid on the pommel horse (13.600 for third), steady with the still rings (13.600 for second), and scorching on the horizontal bars, where he placed first with 13.750. ‍‍

And there was no moment where he didn’t flex his arms or cap a routine with a nod and a confident smile.
“He’s just way above [everyone else],” said Philippine gymnastics president Cynthia Carrion.

And that’s even with shaky performances on the vault, where he wobbled a landing but still finished second at 14.550, and the parallel bars, where he also placed second with 14.400.

Still, he placed second on both, enough to put him way ahead of Dinh Phuong Thanh, who eventually tallied 82.360 for the silver, and Le Thanh Tung’s 81.700 for bronze.

Interestingly, the pair was part of the 2017 crew that tabbed the gold in the team all-around event.

“I just want to thank God and [the crowd],” the teenager from Leveriza in Manila said.

The raucous audience backed his every move with wild cheers of appreciation, boosting Yulo when he needed a zap of extra energy.
“People were asking me if Caloy would win. I told them: I’d be very disappointed if he didn’t,” Carrion said.

Yulo can further hike his gold-medal haul when he returns to action this Tuesday for the apparatus finals. Earlier in the day, Agatha Wong successfully defended her regional crown after ruling the women’s taolu taijiquan of wushu at World Trade Center.‍‍

Wong registered a score of 9.67 for the gold medal.She bested Lachkar Basma of Brunei (9.550) and Tran Thi Minh of Vietnam (9.530), who took silver and bronze, respectively. ”The challenge for me was to get in the right mentality, that I wouldn’t get any negativity in my head,” Wong said after her victory. —WITH REPORTS FROM MELVIN SARANGAY AND GIO MIGUEL VENTURINA INQ