Yulo rules the gym with his fifth title

HANOI • Filipino star Carlos Yulo wrapped up his campaign at the SEA Games with victories in the horizontal bars and vault yesterday to complete a dominant performance in the men's artistic gymnastics programme.

The 22-year-old's total haul was five golds and two silvers at the Quan Ngua Sports Palace. He picked up titles in the rings, all-around and floor exercise on Sunday, powering his country to its best finish in the sport in recent years with a 7-5-1 tally.

Yulo, who won the vault event at last year's world championships and the floor exercise at the 2019 edition, was a class above his rivals in Hanoi.

In the vault, he scored 14.700, comfortably ahead of Thai Tikumporn Surintornta (14.250) while his compatriot Juancho Miguel Besana (14.017) took the bronze.

Things were much closer in the horizontal bars though. Yulo scored 13.867 points, exactly the same as Vietnam's Dinh Phuong Thanh. It meant they were both awarded the gold medal while another Vietnamese Thanh Tung Le (13.433) settled for the bronze.

Thanh got his revenge on Yulo, after sharing the gold, when he scored 15.133 in the parallel bars, ahead of Yulo's 14.900. Le was third with 14.500.

Yulo, who captured two golds and five silvers at the previous edition three years ago in front of his home fans, said: "If it's up to me, I wanted to win all the medals in all the events."

He was circumspect about his performance in the horizontal bars. "I thought I lost the gold there," said Yulo, who was informed of the interesting decision by Gymnastics Association of the Philippines president Cynthia Carrion.

Carrion defended Yulo's results and said: "There are two golds (in that event). The difficulty of Carlos' performance was much higher and the landing (of the Vietnamese). We should have scored higher."

THE INQUIRER/ ANN