Confidence booster for the golden boy.
Carlos Yulo followed up his silver showing in the men’s all-around on Friday with a golden conquest in the floor exercise on Saturday at the 2023 Seniors Artistic Gymnastics Asian Championship.
The 23-year-old Olympian dominated the competition, finishing with 15.300 points on the strength of flawless executions and impeccable landings in the penultimate day of the Asian Gymnastics Championships being held at the OCBC Arena in Singapore. Kazakhstan’s Dimitriy Patanin was a distant second with 14.366 points, while China’s Su Weide settled for bronze with 14.333.
The golden finish should give the 2019 world champion all the confidence he needs for the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships, which will be held later this year in Antwerp, Belgium. The world tilt is the largest qualifier for the Paris Olympics—and the only one this year.
Yulo had already secured his ticket to Antwerp on Friday after claiming second place in the individual all-around event with a final score of 85.930—less than a point behind the 86.065 points of gold-medal winner Shinnosuke Oka of Japan.
The top eight finishers of each event are guaranteed a slot in the world tilt, which also means Yulo’s cousin, Ivan Cruz, will likely join him in Belgium after finishing eighth in the floor exercise with 11.433 points. The younger Cruz, of course, first made a name for himself when he won a gold medal at the 2023 Southeast Asian Games in May.
Yulo the Olympian, along with compatriots Aleah Finnegan and Emma Malabuyo, will try to add more hardware on the final day of competition on Sunday.