By Dion Mikhail Fetalvero

PHOTO: Philippine News Agency

A day after winning the country’s first Asian Championships medal with a silver in the all-around finals, Carlos Yulo added another one to his prized collection, making one for the history books.

The two-time world champion opened day one of the tilt’s apparatus finals dazzling in gold after dominating his pet event – the men’s floor exercise in Doha, Qatar on Friday.

The win sparked the nation’s first-ever gold in the continental championships as the 22-year-old led the event with a 0.600 differential, tallying 14.933 points, ahead of second and third place finishers Hansol Kim from Korea and Jiaxing Yang from China (14.333).

Yulo displayed his world-class pedigree after submitting the most difficult routine (6.300) and the smoothest execution (8.633) among the eight competitors.

This was a bit better than his qualifying score of 14.800 and a 8.500 execution score.

The Southeast Asian Games multi-medallist also had the chance to medal in the men’s still rings later that night but settled for fourth with 14.000.

Chinese gymnast Lan Xingyu struck gold in the event with 14.500 while Iran’s Mahdi Ahmad Kohani (14.433) and Chinese Taipei's Lin Guan-Yi (14.200) won silver and bronze, respectively.

Yulo will hope to finish his Asiad campaign on a triumphant note, vying for two more medals from the vault and parallel bars apparatus finals the day after.

The Tokyo 2020 Olympian is a strong candidate for the medal contention after bagging one gold in the vault and one silver in the parallel bars at the last World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Kitakyushu, Japan.


Edited by Quian Vencel Galut