TWO-TIME world champion Carlos Yulo will compete in four Artistic Gymnastics World Cup legs inside a three-month swing and has calendared the Cambodia 32nd Southeast Asian Games in May and the Hangzhou 19th Asian Games in September.
A busy year for the 22-year-old Yulo who shoots for the medal he missed in his Olympics debut in Tokyo in 2021 with his focus zeroing in on next year’s Olympics in Paris.
“It was a roller-coaster ride,” Yulo said of his 2022 season. “A lot of things happened—sweet, joyful, bitter, painful and extreme—and there were goals I reached and some I didn’t. But what’s important was the lesson I have learned.”
Yulo was spectacular in last May’s Hanoi SEA Games where he won gold medals in the all-around, floor exercise, rings, vault and horizontal bars, and got silver in team and parallel bars.
He was similarly dominant at the Asian championships in Doha last June with victories in the vault, floor exercise and parallel bars and silver in the all-around.
But he couldn’t repeat as champion at the Liverpool world championships where he settled for silver in vault and bronze in parallel bars—he was world champion in floor exercise in 2019 and vault in 2021.
First up for Yulo is the Artistic Gymnastics World Cup in Cottbus, Germany, from February 23 to 26, second leg in Doha from March 1 to 4, third leg in Baku, Azerbaijan, from March 9 to 12 and fourth leg in Cairo, Egypt, from April 27 to 30.
All four legs offer qualifying points for the September 30 to October 8 world championships in Antwerp, Belgium, where the top eight gymnasts in the all-around will qualify for Paris.
The Cambodia SEA Games from May 5 to 17 and the Hangzhou Asian Games from September 23 to October 8 also tops Yulo’s calendar.
Yulo was in town in December to receive the Gymnastics Association of the Philippines (GAP-KG MVP Award—alongside GAP president Cynthia Carrion-Norton was awarded as the Most Outstanding National Sports Association Leader Award.
It also marked the first time since 1990 that Yulo celebrated Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve with his family in Leveriza, Pasay City. He flies back to Tokyo on Tuesday.
Image credits: AP