Yulo fancied to rule all SEA Games gymnastics events in Cambodia

MANILA, Philippines – World champion gymnast Caloy Yulo is a favorite to sweep all seven events in the Phnom Penh Southeast Asian Games slated May 5-17.

But no thanks to a bizarre rule host Cambodia has imposed, the pocket-sized dynamo from Leveriza, Manila could only take home a maximum of two gold medals.

“In gymnastics, they said that even if Caloy win seven gold, he can only receive two,” Gymnastics Association of the Philippines president Cynthia Carrion told The STAR on Thursday.

The decision would prevent Yulo from surpassing, if not duplicating, his five-gold and two-silver harvest in last year’s Hanoi Games where he emerged the most bemedaled Filipino athlete.

And that is apart from an earlier decision by the organizers to remove women’s artistic gymnastics (WAG) where the country snared two mints in last year’s Hanoi Games as well as rhtymic gymnastics (RG) from the calendar.

“And there’s no WAG nor RG, where can we win medals? What kind of games they are playing,” she said.

Carrion, however, stressed Yulo will still participate for the love of the sport.

“It will look bad if we don’t. We’re doing it out of sportsmanship and for the sport that we love,” she said.

The host hasn’t done it in gymnastics alone.

In fact, it removed bodybuilding completely, merged muay thai with Kun Khmer, a Cambodia martial art, and restricted participation by visiting countries in other martial arts and disciplines.

They’re just doing every trick in the book to win.