Carlos Yulo will have company when the 52nd FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships takes place in September in Antwerp, Belgium.
After coming up with impressive performances in the 10th Senior Artistic Gymnastics Asian Championships in Singapore, Filipino-American Aleah Finnegan and Kylee Kvamme made the grade for the world championships, jacking up the country’s bets to Antwerp to three.
In a phone conversation with Daily Tribune, GAP president Cynthia Carrion said both gymnasts were emotional after confirming their seats in the biggest gymnastics competition outside of the Olympics.
But this is only the beginning as the two gymnasts will have to work doubly hard to make a lot of heads turn in Antwerp where the top 14 gymnasts in the women’s division will qualify for the Paris Olympics.
Finnegan scored 50.399 points to get into seventh place in the individual all-around as China’s Qiu Qiyuan of China did 54.932 for the gold medal.
Qiu’s teammate, Zhang Qingying garnered 53.965 points for second place while Korean Shin Solyi registered 53.499 points for the bronze.
Kvamme, who is slated to represent the University of Alabama in the US National Collegiate Athletic Association Division 1, wound up at 14th place after scoring 14.765 points.
But with China, Korea and Japan already qualified in the World Championships, she was able to make the cut.
But that’s just one step that was needed to overcome
“They were crying and everybody was applauding them,” Carrion said.
“Carlos, we are assured he will win. We don’t know about them because the Chinese, the Japanese and the Koreans are ahead of them. I’m happy that they’re in the worlds but they have to work hard to win to qualify for the Olympics.”
At press time, Yulo is competing in the final of the floor exercise with 32nd Southeast Asian Games gold medalist John Ivan Cruz in the rings and Finnegan in the vault finals.
Yulo will play in the final of the vault, horizontal bar and parallel bar while Finnegan will try her luck in the floor exercise with Emma Malabuyo as well as in the balance beam.
