AT the rate Carlos Yulo is going, the country may have to build a statue for this man who has given us more sporting glory than any individual athlete—or, if we do the math, a whole national team—in the last 100 years.
He just gave us a second Asian Games gold medal Friday by topping gymnastics in vault, an apparatus where an athlete has to sprint down a runway, spring off a board, hit a padded table with the hands, and perform aerial flips and twists before making a perfect landing.
While qualifying for this event a few days back, Yulo executed an awkward landing that drew audible gasps from the crowd and nearly broke the hearts of Filipino sports officials.
Because of the incredulous end to a routine that saw him land on his behind, many thought, if silently, that he wouldn’t even make it to the finals. But the guy managed, placing seventh among eight qualifiers.
And that was all the break he needed.
With him on the field, the opposition knew the battle just became formidable. Yulo happens, after all, to be the reigning Olympic champion in this event.
Now given a fighting chance, the 26-year-old Yulo delivered, and in the process added a new chapter in his gymnastics lore.
READ: Beautiful takeaways from 'meme-worthy' Carlos Yulo photo
With two gold medals, one earned from the floor exercise earlier, it can be said that Yulo has already, by himself, won 50-percent of the country’s four gold-medal haul at the 2022 Asiad in Jakarta, which is the number that Philippine Olympic Committee president Bambol Tolentino had counted as the decent campaign output for this year.
Yulo added a little more drama to his Asian Games stint when he competed in the parallel bars later Friday and narrowly missed another medal by placing fourth.
The parallel bars were never his strong suit, unlike the floor exercise and the vault, but with just a bit more flourish, he could’ve secured a bronze.
Pride of the Philippines
All told, this young man has confirmed himself as a national treasure.
He has already made history by winning not one but two gold medals at the 2024 Olympics, the first athlete in Philippine history to have managed the feat.
Just how important that is can be illustrated by the fact that, with his win, we can now count three golds in more than a century of Olympic competition, the first one delivered by weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.
Now 26, there remain probably two more Olympics in Yulo’s sporting life. The next one is in 2028 in Los Angeles when he will be 28 and likely still in his prime - and perhaps a last one in Australia in 2032 when he will be 32.
There is more good news: The Yulo imprint in sports is not likely to end with Carlos. Rising steadily is his younger brother, Eldrew, who looks to have lit the embers of another Yulo run in global gymnastics.
Eldrew, 18, joined his brother at the medal parade Friday in Nagoya, Japan, by taking the bronze in the horizontal bar, edging veterans and favorites alike to make a podium finish and—imagine this—at his very first Asiad.
With brother Carlos around to provide pointers and encouragement, Eldrew has nothing but a bright future ahead.
But there’s also a message here that’s not to be missed: Individual sports like gymnastics, weightlifting, and mixed martial arts—the latter bagged two medals from three entries—deserve more support and attention from Philippine sports leaders.
Lately, they seem obsessed with volleyball, dropping not just millions but billions of pesos in a sport that’s given us nothing in international competitions. Because officials running the sport are said to be deft at dealing with those who control funding, the sport is awash with public money without a decent show at global competitions.
More troubling, officials there are rumored to have dipped into the very funds meant for volleyball. It is the same accusation some of the same officials are facing for reportedly ripping funds from the 2019 Southeast Asian Games that the country hosted.
It has been reported that the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) is looking into the possibility of filing charges against some officials for the alleged misuse of up to P10 billion in funds meant for hosting the 2019 SEA Games.
That is another story for another day, but I guess it’s best to remind people that there has not been a proper accounting of funds spent on the 2019 SEA Games and the 2025 FIVB Men’s World Volleyball Championship held here in 2025 when the country hosted it to the amount of P2 Billion.
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