A bad landing in the pommel horse apparatus spelled doom for Pinoy gymnast Carlos Yulo, who mounted a roaring comeback in Paris 2024 with his first Olympic Games individual all-around finals appearance.
Philippine gymnast Carlos Yulo came up short in his comeback bid in the Olympic Games Paris 2024 men’s artistic gymnastics all-around finals, finishing in 12th place with a total of 83.032 points at the Bercy Arena in France on Thursday, August 1 (Philippine time).
Still, it was a remarkable performance for Yulo as he reached his first individual all-around finals of the Olympics--a far cry from Tokyo 2020 where he only made it to the medal round of vault.
The 24-year-old Yulo showed significant improvements in the different apparatuses, highlighting his improvement from just being a floor exercise world champion in 2019.
Yulo started in the pommel horse apparatus, where he unfortunately fell during his dismount, earning just a score of 11.900.
The Filipino gymnastics star bounced back big time with the rings apparatus, putting up 13.933 points to improve his chances. He was the third highest in this apparatus behind Great Britain's Joe Fraser and China's Zhang Boheng.
At one point, Yulo’s score was the top among the competitors until midway through the third rotation.
Yulo continued his solid run with one of his pet events, the vault, scoring 14.766.
As the all-around final progressed, Yulo’s vault score was the second highest among the 24 competitors—a good sign for his vault finals on Sunday, August 4. This was also considering that he had a -0.03 deduction in his run as he landed outside the lines.
He tied with Japan's Hashimoto Daiki for the vault, while Great Britain's Jake Jarman topped with 15.166. Jarman--a half-Filipino--will be expected to be one of Yulo's rivals in the vault finals on August 4.
From 24th to start the competition, Yulo continued to jump in the rankings behind his 14.500 score in the parallel bars. He then followed that up with a 13.500 score in the horizontal bar, ending up in 11th with one final apparatus to go.
In the final apparatus, Yulo dazzled in the floor exercise but had some deductions due to a stumble, ending up with a score of 14.333 points.
Japan’s Oka Shinnosuke bagged the gold medal with a total of 86.832.
Tokyo 2020 gold medalist Zhang Boheng of China failed to defend his crown, settling for second with 86.599 points, just 0.233 short of tying his Japanese rival.
Zhang’s teammate, Xiao Ruoteng snatch the bronze medal with a close score of 86.364.
Yulo will next compete in the floor exercise finals on August 3 and the vault finals on August 4.