Carlos Yulo felt that his performance was not that bad after finishing eighth place in the men’s all-around finals and placing seventh spot in the overall rankings
The 4’11 Yulo admitted he had mixed feelings after Day 1 of the men’s finals of the 51st Artistic Gymnastics World Championships, Saturday morning (Philippine time) at the M&S Bank Arena in Liverpool, United Kingdom.
The 22-year-old Yulo took placed first in his favorite event, the floor exercise, and parallel bars of the all-around finals, but placed only 19th in the pommel horse, sixth in the rings, 15th in the vault and 22nd in the horizontal bars.
“I am happy but at the same time I am disappointed,” said Yulo, who finished 0.1 points behind Tokyo Olympic medallists Wataru Tanigawa and Daiki Hashimoto in the qualification.
Overall, Olympic champion Daiki Hashimoto took lead in the individual rankings with 57.765 points, and after winning the all-around gold medal with 87.188 points.
Hashimoto’s top finish came despite losing to Yulo in the floor exercise.
China’s Zhang Boheng was second overall with 57.66, followed in third and fourth by Japan’s Wataru Tanigawa (56.865) and British bet Brody Malone (56.298).
The 22-year old Yulo, who was seventh overall with 55.032 points, and with 82.095 points in the all-around standings, was impressive in the opener of his routines in the floor exercise with 15.166 points for his first of two first place finishes for the day.
This gave Yulo a half-point lead at the end of the first of six rotations, over Hashimoto before the Japanese eventually took the individual all-around gold medal.
“Overall, the experience was really good. I am in the top eight, it’s not bad and is still a big achievement for me,” added Yulo, who scored 6.4 points on difficulty and 8.766 on execution.
Hashimoto, a 2020 Olympic double gold medallist in the all-around and horizontal bar, notched 14.666, while British bet Jake Jarman took third with 14.433.
Errors in the pommel horse, vault, and the horizontal bar later took away his chances to score higher points.
Yulo then bounced back with a second first place finish in the parallel bars, off scores of 6.3 points and 8.866 points in difficulty and executive, and total of 15.166.
Yulo’s showing was a notch better than what he did previously, when he settled for a 10th place finish in 2019 in the all-around.
His coach Munehiro Kugimiya said more will be seen in Yulo when competes on his last three events.
The apparatus finals of the floor exercise is coming up on Saturday evening (Sunday, Manila time) and the vault and the parallel bars championship follows on Sunday evening in Liverpool (Monday in Manila).
“Awarded for first time in all around final!! But still not in his best performance yet. First time top group we joined, I feel some different atmosphere there. It was so great experience talaga,” said Kugimiya in a post.
“I want Japanese Gymnastics to be number one,” said Hashimoto, who proclaimed himself “very happy” to win. “Competing against [Zhang] was a motivation. The battle with Zhang Boheng was so good.”
caption: Carlos Yulo and coach Munehiro Kugimiya prepare to grind on Day 1 of finals