A GOLD medal in the floor exercise, a silver medal in the vault, and a finals appearance in the parallel bars.
Gymnastics chief Cynthia Carrion expressed confidence yesterday that world floor exercise champion Caloy Yulo can attain these lofty goals when he becomes the first Filipino campaigner to spring into action in the Tokyo Olympic Games on July 24 at the Ariake Gymnastics Center in the Japanese capital.
The Olympic artistic gymnastics championships will be among the first sports to unfold a day after the opening of the COVID-19 delayed quadrennial global sports showcase on July 23 at the Japan National Stadium.
“What we are working on with coach Munehiro Kugimiya is that he (Yulo) will win a gold medal in the floor exercise, win a silver medal in the vault and that he will be in the finals of the parallel bars,” Carrion said yesterday in the Philippine Sportswriters Association online forum.
The preliminaries of the men’s all-around and the six apparatuses — floor exercise, rings, parallel bars, pommel horse, vault and horizontal bar — will be on July 24, with the top eight in each event advancing to the finals.
The finals of the floor exercise, vault and parallel bars will be from Aug. 1 to 3, respectively.
A protégé of the Gymnastics Association of Philippines since he was seven years old, Yulo is the top favorite in the men’s floor exercise in Tokyo following his epic triumph in his pet event in the 49th FIG World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Stuttgart, Germany two years ago.
Carrion said Yulo kept his cards close to his chest when he skipped the floor exercise and vault events in the recent All-Japan artistic gymnastics championships to focus on the parallel bars, although he later told her that “he is still the best in the event in the floor exercise, at least in Japan.”
She added that included in Yulo’s floor exercise repertoire is the difficult triple back flip that he has been executing well consistently in training.
She said Yulo’s most likely rivals in the floor exercise in Tokyo are Russian Nikita Nagornyi, the reigning world all-around champion; Israel’s Dolgopyat and China’s Xiao Ruofeng, who placed second and third, respectively, to the Pinoy gymnast in Stuttgart two years ago.
Carrion said in the public sports program supported by the Philippine Amusements and Gaming Corp., San Miguel Corp., Milo, Smart, Amelie Hotel and Braska Restaurant that the diminutive dynamo is set to be completely inoculated with the Pfizer accine by next week.
“At first I didn’t want them to get vaccinated but the World Gymnastics Federation president, Morinari Watanabe, who is a good friend, advised us to have them get vaccinated because if they test positive during the Olympics then Yulo won’t be able to compete,” she said.
Carrion said that whatever the outcome of the Tokyo Games, “Watanabe has assured us that Yulo can continue training in Japan in preparation for the 2024 Paris Olympics.”
