FI:E–Philippines’ Carlos Edriel Yulo competes in the floor event at the men’s team qualification during the Artistic Gymnastics World Championship on October 20, 2021. (Photo by Charly TRIBALLEAU / AFP)
Carlos Yulo positioned himself for an auspicious finish after leading the men’s all-around competition at the start of the 9th Senior Artistic Gymnastics Asian Championships in Doha, Qatar.
The 4-foot-11 Tokyo Olympian topped the qualifying for the floor exercises with 14.800 points and received the nod of the judges on rings with a 14.100 that translated to an all-around performance of 41.833.
Yulo, the most bemedalled Filipino athlete during the recent 31st Southeast Asian Games in Hanoi, Vietnam, with five gold medals and two silvers, tallied 12.933 in the pommel horse.
But with two of his strongest apparatuses coming up—the vault and the horizontal bar—Yulo is a clear favorite to lord it over among the best male gymnasts in the continent.
The Japan-based, 22-year-old ruled the individual all-around, floor exercise, rings, vault and horizontal bar in the Vietnam SEA Games and placed second in the parallel bars. Yulo got another silver during the Games in the men’s team event.
Breathing down Yulo’s neck in the all-around are the Chinese trio of Yin Dehang (41.800), Yang Jiaxing (41.700) and Shi Cong (41.300).
Three Japanese gymnasts—Koki Maeda (40.933), Shiga Tachibana (40.900) and Tsuyoshi Hasegawa (40.300)–are also closely lurking behind the leaders.