Carlos Yulo wipes the floor with Asian foes, bags second gold

FILE–The Philippines’ Carlos Yulo competes in the Men’s Floor Final during the 52nd FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships, in Antwerp, northern Belgium, on October 7, 2023. (Photo by Lionel BONAVENTURE / AFP)

Carlos Yulo may be extending his gold collection in different apparatuses. But he proved he is still a force to reckon with after in the floor exercise, the discipline that pushed him into the limelight when he won the gold five years ago in the 2019 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Stuttgart, Germany.

Yulo, sharpening his routine in preparation for a podium finish in the Paris Olympics later this year, ruled the men’s floor exercise for a second gold at the Asian Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

After snaring the individual all-around title earlier, Yulo compiled 14.933 points in the floor exercise final, defeating Kazakhstan’s Milad Karimi, who assembled 14.6 for the silver medal and bronze medalist Yang Yanzhi of China (14.2).

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John Ivan Cruz, the Southeast Asian Games gold medalist in the floor, nearly made it to the podium with Yulo after posting 13.966 points, good for fourth place.

Yulo ruled the floor in the Asian championships for the third straight year after topping it in 2022 Doha and 2023 Singapore.

The two-time world champion, who also won the vault in the 2021 world championships, finally captured the individual all-around at the continental level after back-to-back silver finishes the past two editions.

The 24-year-old Tokyo Olympian from Leveriza in the Philippine capital city of Manila likewise figured in the final of the still rings, but landed out of medal range at sixth with 13.533 points.

But Yulo remains on track to duplicating his three golds each in Doha and Singapore and could even surpass it when he tackles three more apparatuses in the final of the vault, parallel bars and horizontal bar.