CARLOS YULO looks forward to an all-mental, all-psychological finals at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool where he’s in medal position in four events—his favorite floor exercise, vault, parallel bars and the all-around.
That means he won’t be tinkering with his routines in all four.
“Same routine but perfect execution,” Yulo told BusinessMirror via internet video call on Wednesday.
Motivated by his strong in during the qualification stage Tuesday at the M&S Bank Arena, the 22-year-old Tokyo Olympian said that he only needs to perfectly execute the same routine prepared by his long-time Japanese coach Munehiro Kugumiya to get better results.
“I need to focus on overcoming my doubts and fears,” said Yulo, who’ll be going for a medal in the men’s all-around on Friday and will defend his vault gold and improve on the parallel bars silver from last year’s Kitakyushu worlds and try to regain the floor exercise gold he won in Stuttgart in 2019—all on Saturday and Sunday.
“I will do the same routine, no need to do something else,” he said. “I just have to overcome myself—that’s the only way and there’s no secret on what I do. I just practice hard and [wise].”
Yulo, the most bemedaled Filipino at the Hanoi Southeast Asian Games last May with five golds and two silvers, placed third in the men’s all-around qualification with 84.664 score behind Japan’s Wataru Tanigawa (84.731) and Daiki Hashimoto (84.665).
He topped the qualification for the floor exercise with 15.266 points, second in vault and fourth place in parallel bars.
Yulo said he had no regret improvising in the qualification that caused him a top spot in the vault and stressed he has gained more confidence after executing the “Ri Se-gwang”— backward full-twisting double tucked move—named after the former Olympic gold medalist and three-time world champion gymnast from North Korea.
“That was my first time to do that, but it gave me the confidence now to compete in the finals so all I have to do is bring out my best,” Yulo said. “I will just try my best to perfect it.”
After Tuesday’s qualification phase, Yulo, Kugumiya and his physiotherapist Junpei Kunno took a five-minute leisurely walk back to their hotel from the competition venue.
The floor exercise final is on Saturday and the vault and parallel bars medal plays are on Sunday.
Image credits: Jat Tenorio