INQUIRER Sports Top 7 Stories of 2019: Carlos Yulo is PH’s 1st world champion gymnast
There were no shortage of drama, celebrations and iconic moments this year in Philippine sports and there were some that stood out from the rest.
For the next several days, INQUIRER.net runs down the top 7 sports stories of 2019.
If there ever was a firecracker that made the loudest explosion in 2019, it has to be the diminutive Carlos Yulo.
The 4-foot-11 Yulo exploded into the public’s consciousness when he won the gold medal in the floor exercise of the 2019 World Artistic Gymnastics Competition in Stuttgart, making his the first Filipino world champion gymnast.
After his gold medal triumph in October, Yulo quickly elevated into a Filipino sporting superstar and he hasn’t slowed down since.
Yulo followed up his World Championship win with a successful run in the 2019 Southeast Asian Games where he won two gold and five silver medals to become the Filipino delegation’s most bemedalled athlete.
That won’t be the end of Yulo’s exploits, though, as he’s now prepping up for the biggest stage in sports—the Olympics.
Yulo’s conquest of Stuttgart earned him an automatic spot in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, putting him as a viable candidate to give the Philippines its first gold medal in the Summer Games.
The closest the Philippines has been to the top of the podium was in 1964, 1996, and 2016.
Hidilyn Diaz was the country’s last silver medalist the women’s -53 kilogram division in the weightlifting event of the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Both Yulo and Diaz, as well as pole vaulter EJ Obiena, are well on their way to the Olympics.
To take on that golden task, Yulo went straight back to work after the SEA Games and returned to Japan to once again train with his coach Munehiro Kugimiya.
