CARLOS Yulo delivered the second gold medal for the Philippines in the 2026 Asian Games in less than 24 hours.
Fresh off giving the country its first gold in the men’s floor exercise on Thursday, Yulo headed to the Nagoya City General Gymnasium on Friday afternoon to assert his mastery in the men’s vault by averaging 14.599 points.
Doubts had hounded the two-time Olympic gold medalist during his preliminary performance, when he came close to missing a final slot after falling and slipping on the vault, finishing with an average of 13.649.
But the 26-year-old Yulo bounced back in the finals, performing a routine with a high 5.6 difficulty value on his first vault and scoring 9.133 in execution for a total of 14.733 points.
He opened with a strong first vault, executing a double pike followed by a half turn.
In his second vault, Yulo lowered his difficulty to 5.2.
Known for being elegant up in the air whenever he spins, Yulo capped his performance with an almost perfect landing.
The 5.6 difficulty value was the same level that he posted in vault 2 when he won the gold in the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Still, the highest difficulty level that Yulo posted was 6.000 in Vault 1 during the Olympics.
Yulo, being the sixth to perform in the eight-man field vault finals, witnessed how Iran’s Mahdi Olfati almost clinched the gold medal.
Olfati also declared a 5.6 difficulty in his routine, followed by a near-perfect execution of 9.400 and a 0.1 bonus, garnering a score of 15.01.
But the Iranian wobbled on his landing on the second vault and needed at least 14.098 to tie with Yulo.
Anticipating his score, Olfati finished with 13.966 in vault 2 (5.2 difficulty level, 8.866 execution), averaging a total of 14.533 points, making him settle for a silver medal.
Hong Kong’s vault specialist Ka Ki Ng finished with a bronze medal with 14.116 points (14.233 in vault 1 and 14.000 in vault 2).
Yulo now joins the elite club of Filipinos who earned multiple gold medals in the Asian Games.
The first was Mona Sulaiman, who swept the women’s 100-meter and 200-meter events at the 1962 Jakarta Asian Games, capturing two individual golds in a single edition.
Adolfo Feliciano earned two gold medals in shooting at the 1954 Asian Games.
Gunning for a third medal, Yulo fell off the podium and placed fourth after scoring 14.300 points in his final event, the parallel bars.
The parallel bars are not one of Yulo’s strongest events, compared with the floor exercise and vault.
The apparatus places less emphasis on artistry and demands greater core strength, seamless execution and a clean, graceful dismount.
China’s Jingyuan Zou claimed the gold with 15.500 points, Japan’s Shinnosuke Oka the silver (14.500), and Uzbekistan’s Rasuljon Abdurakhimov the bronze (14.433).
Yulo posted a 5.6 difficulty score and 8.700 in execution. Gold medalist Zou performed a 6.0 difficulty routine, scored 9.400 in execution, and received a 0.1 bonus.
The other two podium finishers both competed with a 5.4 difficulty value: Oka earned 9.000 in execution plus a 0.1 bonus, while Abdurakhimov scored 9.033 in execution.
