By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña
What a way to end in style.
After clinching his first gold medal in the parallel bars event of the FIG Gymnastics World Cup Series held in Baku, Azerbaijan, Filipino gymnastics sensation Carlos Yulo displayed another flawless performance in the vault event to claim his second championship title of the prized tournament last March 12, 2023.
Yulo shrugged off fatigue issues soon as he made his routine and averaged the title-clinching score of 14.933 points after two attempts.
The 23-year-old superstar immediately wowed the crowd after nabbing 15.033 points and did enough to bag the gold with a score of 14.833 points in his last run.
It was a handspring double front pike that kicked off his chase for greatness which was tough to execute, one of the main reasons for his impressive tally in his very first attempt.
Great Britain’s Harry Hepworth attempted to overtake Yulo’s first place after a clean finish in his second attempt but still wasn’t enough to equalize the Filipino’s degree of difficulty and timing.
Coming in at third place was Wai Hung Shek of Hong Kong while Iran’s Mahdi Olfati took fourth place honors.
A day before participating in the vault event, Yulo already delivered a gold medal to the PHL after ruling the parallel bars.
Yulo scored 15.4 points in the final round to fend off Illia Kovtun of Ukraine and France’s Cameron-Lie Bernard.
Kovtun fell short of equalizing Yulo’s fantastic championship routine and finished with 15.366 points while the French challenger had 14.6 points.
Yulo will seek to continue his hot streak when he joins his lined-up international events to be determined after his participation in Azerbaijan.
