Carlos Yulo, Carlo Paalam guided by more than just usual strategy

Carlos Edriel Yulo, of the Philippines, celebrates after performing on the horizontal bar during the men’s artistic gymnastics all-around finals in Bercy Arena at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Wednesday, July 31, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

They are linked by more than just the country they represent, the goals they have in the 2024 Paris Olympics or the similarity of their names.

Carlo Paalam and Carlos Yulo also both know exactly what they must do to keep Team Philippines in the hunt for a medal—gold, even—in the glamorous French capital.

The numbers will guide them.

“My score in the vault was a bit low,” Yulo told Olympics broadcaster OneSports after finishing 12th in the all-around finals of men’s artistic gymnastics at Bercy Arena in the early hours of Thursday morning (Manila time).

Yulo submitted a routine with a 6.000 difficulty in the vault but found a few things that need cleaning up to improve on the 9.066 he generated from execution, including finding a way to clean up the act that was penalized by 0.3 points.

Yulo’s 14.766 was still good enough for a tie for third among vault scores.

Paalam, meanwhile, dismantled a bigger Jude Gallagher of Ireland to qualify for the quarterfinals of the men’s 57-kilogram division in boxing on late Wednesday evening.

His mix of quickness and power offset his size disadvantage against the game Irishman, but if you ask the Tokyo Olympics silver medalist, it was his astute thinking that did the trick—and will continue to do so.

“Strength is useless if you can’t land a clear punch,” Paalam said after the match at North Paris Arena. “My effort was 30-percent power and 70-percent [strategy].”

Yulo and Paalam are two of the brightest podium bets for the Philippines. And with other key hopefuls crashing—power-punching boxers Eumir Marcial and Hergie Bacyadan crashed out after losing their opening bouts—the pressure has cranked up for the remainder of Team Philippines, who will be guided by a very high numerical standard: One gold, two silvers and one bronze.

Australian next

Those were the medals collected by the previous Philippine delegation to the Summer Games, the one that ended the nearly century-old hunt for the country’s first Olympic champion. And those are the numbers this current batch of Olympians—one of the best prepared in the history of the country’s participation in the Olympiad—are looking to improve on.

It’s certainly doable. Still to compete is pole vault star EJ Obiena, the world No. 2 who is looking to upset the seemingly peerless and machine-like Mondo Duplantis on the way to Olympic glory.

Boxing has two other bets still in the hunt: Aira Villegas was set to compete at press time while Nesthy Petecio is slated to face hometown bet Amina Zidani, the No. 3 seed in the women’s 57-kg class, on Saturday (Manila time) for a spot in the quarterfinals.

Yulo and Paalam will also be on the block in the coming weekend.

Paalam is set to battle Australian Charlie Senior, a 4-1 winner over Belgian Vasile Usturoi, with a win guaranteeing the Cagayan de Oro native a bronze medal—his second straight Olympic podium finish.

Once again, Paalam, whose original flyweight division was scrubbed off in a condensed Olympic boxing schedule, will face tall odds—literally—against an opponent who is much more comfortable than the Filipino in the featherweight ranks.

But Paalam’s mentor, Elmer Pamisa, sees little problem against the Australian, saying his ward has had good results against his next opponent in past sparring sessions.

Paalam also has added motivation to secure that guaranteed bronze.

“I’ll try to win every fight because all the Filipinos who came here bought expensive tickets,” he said. “In every fight, I always say, win or lose, I’ll do my best so I don’t have anything to regret when I go down from that ring.”

Falls off horse

Yulo dropped to 24th place—last—at the start of the all-around final after falling off the pommel horse at the end of his routine.

“I was about to dismount and I think the angle on my handstand was wrong,” he said, grinning sheepishly, after an 11.900 to start his rotation.

But even as he rallied to eventually finish 12th overall, he used the all-around final as his preparation for his other two final schedules.

“I was thinking about the vault and the floor,” he said.

The two-time world champion may have a lot of work to do in the floor exercise. He finished with a 14.333, which was tied for fifth among the 24 finalists during the all-around.

“I relaxed a bit on my third pass,” Yulo said. “I lost [the handle on] my back handspring. My takeoff was weak. I was in control with my landing, but not with my takeoff.”

“But I have an idea on what I have to do in the finals,” he said.

Yulo was much more assertive in the vault, where he scored 14.766 to help build his 83.032 aggregate in the all-around.

He admitted that there were some things he needed to clean up “but the fact that I was able to [stick the landing] in the actual competition [makes me feel] I’m OK now.”

“I’m really happy (with the vault performance),” he added. “I got an idea of how I will adjust in practice.”

Yulo also scored a 14.500 on the parallel bars and 13.600 in the horizontal bar during the all-around, where he wasn’t expected to figure in the podium hunt.