CARLOS YULO now looks every inch prime for global stardom, Gymnastics Association of the Philippines President Cynthia Carrion-Norton told BusinessMirror on the eve Thursday of Yulo’s campaign in the men’s all-around event at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool.
“Everybody’s talking about him, everybody’s cheering for him every time he performs as I have observed,” said Carrion-Norton via internet call, adding she’s extra confident Yulo could win gold in the all-around on Friday and retain the vault and regain the floor exercise titles this weekend.
He could be good for silver or bronze in the parallel bars, she said.
Carrion-Norton said the crowd at the M&S Arena rooted for Yulo during Tuesday’s qualification round and were expecting more from the 22-year-old Tokyo Olympian who topped the floor exercise in the Stuttgart 2019 worlds and vault last year in Kitakyushu where he also clinched silver in the bars.
“The talk that comes around here is ‘have you heard, who do you think will win the 2024 Paris Olympics?’ And they say it’s Caloy,” said Carrion-Norton, who on the side gave a talk on safe sports in a symposium relative to the event.
“Caloy is a favorite here. Imagine, a Japanese beside me who doesn’t speak a word of English and had the Philippine flag, clappers and binoculars and took videos only of Caloy,” she said. “I asked him some questions but he didn’t understand me.”
Yulo and his team—Japanese coach Munehiro Kugimiya and physiotherapist Junpei Kunno spent the past two days perfecting his routine, which they deem as the key to winning in this edition of the annual world championships.
“I expect Caloy to win the all-around gold despite being a third place finisher in the qualification,” Carrion-Norton said. “But my expectation is Caloy will win the gold in floor exercise, vault and floor.”
Carrion-Norton added: “He’s no longer happy about being a second placer or having only one or two golds, he wants more. I know he’ll try his best to overcome the 1-2 Japanese finishers (Wataru Tanigawa and Daiki Hashimoto) in the all-around qualification in the final.”
Twenty-one other elite gymnasts are competing in the men’s all-around final.
Image credits: Jat Tenorio