Carlos Yulo will be going home empty-handed after a heartbreaking fourth-place finish in the men’s floor exercise of the 52nd FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships at the Sportpaleis Antwerpen Sunday in Antwerp, Belgium.
Yulo, who previously won the floor exercise title in 2019 in Stuttgart, Germany, could only earn a score of 14.5 points in the eight-man final.
This will be Yulo’s first time to end his campaign in the biggest gymnastics competition without a medal since making his debut in the 2018 edition in Doha where he got a bronze medal.
Tokyo Olympics champion Artem Dolgopyat of Israel dominated the tournament with a score of 15.866 points while Kazuki Minami of Japan got a silver medal with 14.666 points.
Kazakhstan’s Milad Karimi came in at third place with 14.6 points and denying Yulo a spot on the dais.
Even without a medal around his neck this time, the 23-year-old pride of Leveriza, Manila still booked a ticket to the 2024 Paris Olympics after entering the final of the apparatus at third place.
He won’t be alone this time as Filipino-American gymnast Aleah Finnegan made it also as one of the top 14 eligible athletes in the women’s individual all-around after finishing in 32nd place with a total score of 51.366 points.
With Yulo cutting ties with Japanese mentor Munehiro Kugimiya, the Gymnastics Association of the Philippines is already searching for a new foreign coach.
GAP president Cynthia Carrion said Yulo must have a foreign coach to hone him for the remaining qualifying tournaments.
Yulo qualified for the Summer Games only in the floor exercise and will have to play next year in the FIG World Cup and the 11th Asian Artistic Gymnastics Championships to secure a slot in the remaining apparatuses.
“I will get him a coach to monitor him as he knows what to do win but needs good monitoring. He wants to join a lot of training camps away from the Philippines,” Carrion said.
Carrion told DAILY TRIBUNE that Yulo’s opponents made their performances cleaner in the tournament.
“He hit all his skills and was pretty clean but the others were just cleaner with small differences in the execution scores Perhaps it’s his ankle that has been bothering him since last week but the differences are all 0.1,” Carrion said.
