Carlos Yulo rules men's floor exercise, delivers PH's first Asiad gold

September 25 ------ The "Golden Boy" strikes again. Carlos Yulo delivered Philippines' first gold in the 20th Asian Games Aichi-Nagoya 2026 after ruling the men's floor exercise final at the Nagoya General Gymnasium.

His gold-clinching 14.666 output was built on a routine with a 5.7 difficulty and 8.966 execution, just enough to top the event and emerge over Milad Karimi of Kazakhstan, who had 14.600 for the silver, and home bet's Shoma Tsukiyama, who finished with 14.566 for the bronze.

The breakthrough also marked Yulo's first Asian Games gold, adding another first-place finish to his still-growing resume of achievements. Floor exercise was one of the events Yulo won in the Paris Olympics in 2024. He also topped the apparatus in yesterday's team final with score of 14.266. "Having this in my collection ... it's all complete now," said the 26-year-old, who will go for a second gold in the vault on Friday. "We can just relax and hope for the best tomorrow. I will make sure I enjoy tomorrow's competition," he added. "I'm just overwhelmed right now. I can't process it yet."

It was a welcome development for the country's representatives, who had a gold medal drought by far in this year's continental showpiece. "It feels like it's kind of the Olympics for me," added Yulo, the first Filipino athlete to win multiple Olympic medals with his star-making performance in Paris in 2024. "It's my first time winning the Asian Games, and I'm really happy and excited to go home and share this blessing to the people in the Philippines.

Meanwhile, his brother, Eldrew, finished seventh with 12.233. Carlos will still compete in the vault and parallel bars finals, while Eldrew will see action in the horizontal bar final. The elder Yulo was especially pleased his breakthrough Asian Games gold came in Japan, where he spends much of his time training. "Competing here feels home to me," said Yulo."I'm really comfortable here, doing my gymnastics. Maybe because I stayed here for a long, long time and trained with them. "It's nothing new for me to perform my best here. The challenge is just to perform well. It came today. It was a good routine for me today."

They finished sixth place in the team final after a total of 227.359.

Source: news.abs-cbn.com