SPORTING two Olympic gold medals, three World Championships titles, and a slew of regional and continental championships, Carlos Yulo sets his sights on ruling the only tournament he hasn’t won yet — the Asian Games.
Yulo guns for the men’s artistic gymnastics floor exercise gold medal at the Nagoya City General Gymnasium Rainbow Hall in the 20th edition of the Asiad in Japan on Thursday.
The final is set at 4 p.m. in Manila, with Yulo favored to win the same event he ruled at the Paris Olympics, in addition to the vault apparatus.
Emerging as the top qualifier last Monday with 14.600 points, “Caloy” would have to beat his younger brother Karl Eldrew in his gold medal bid, though.
A rookie in the seniors level, Eldrew finished fourth in the qualifications with 13.966 points as he arranged a duel with his kuya (older brother) anew.
At the Asian Championships last June, the 26-year-old Carlos claimed the floor exercise gold medal, besting the competition including the 18-year-old Eldrew, who snared the bronze.
Besides Eldrew, the six other gymnasts aiming to deny Caloy the gold are defending champ Ryu Sunghyun of South Korea, Shoma Tsukiyama of Japan and Sun Wei of China, who placed second, third and fifth, respectively, in the qualifications.
The other three finalists are Shinnosuke Oka of Japan, Milad Karimi of Kazakhstan and Zhang Boheng of China.
If Caloy wins the gold, he will become the second Filipino athlete to rule the Olympics, World Championships, Asian Games and Southeast Asian Games after weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz.
Should Caloy not win the gold in floor, he still has chances in the vault and parallel bars medal rounds set for Friday.
Eldrew also has one more chance in the horizontal bar on Friday.
Another Philippine gymnastics team mainstay Juancho Miguel Besana is competing in the vault final, too.
At press time on Tuesday afternoon, Caloy and Eldrew were to join forces first alongside Besana, Zachary Nunez and Justine Ace De Leon in the team all-around final.
