Yulo bags second gold in Asian Championships

MANILA, Philippines — If his successes in the 11th Senior Men’s Artistic Gymnastics Asian Championships in Tashkent, Uzbekistan were morale boosters to his Paris Olympics bid this July, then Filipino wonder Carlos Yulo got plenty of it.

Buoyed by his victory in the individual all-around last Friday, the 24-year-old two-time world champion added the floor exercise gold to his winning spree at the Gymnastics Sports Palace in the Uzbek capital yesterday.

The diminutive but stocky Filipino was at his best once more as he tallied 14.933 against a field that included Kazakhstan’s Milad Karimi and China’s Yang Yanzhi, who copped the silver and the bronze with 14.600 and 14.200, respectively.

Another Filipino, John Ivan Cruz, missed the podium after Karimi sneaked into second. Cruz wound up fourth with a 13.966.

Yulo’s 14.933 wasn’t as brilliant as his 15.233 in the same apparatus Friday that helped him snare his first individual all-around gold in this annual spectacle. But it was enough to win the gold.

In all, he now has eight gold medals in the meet including three in his pet event – floor exercise.

Yulo, a strong medal potential in the coming Olympics, is in the finals of four more events – still rings at press time  and vault, parallel bars and high bar for today.

“Carlos has made the finals in all except the pommel horse,” said Gymnastics Association of the Philippines president Cynthia Carrion.