Caloy Yulo barely missed the men’s vault podium after placing fourth in the 2020 Olympics Gymnastics’ vault event at the Ariake Gymnastics Center, Monday.
The 30th Southeast Asian Games silver medalist on vault showed up with a solid performance on his two vaults to end up with an average of 14.716.
“Wala na po tayo magagawa doon. Sobrang lapit ko na po. May chance po na makakuha ng medal kung hindi po ako lumagpas,” said Yulo, referring to his first vault, where his right leg went outside of the pad during landing.
World champion Nikita Nagornyy also ended up with the same score, but a better execution of Dragulescu made the difference.
Yulo had a well-executed Kasamatsu double full on his first vault, but he unfortunately stepped out of the landing to merit a 14.566.
Needing to come out with a huge second pass, Yulo came out blazing with a solid performance of Dragulescu for a huge 14.866. A 9.266 on the execution score boosted his result, 0.033 better than that of Nagornyy, which ended up the tiebreaker.
“Nakakahinayang lang po kasi ang ganda ng second vault ko,” added the 21-year-old Yulo, who was hoping to redeem himself in the vault after failing to advance to the finals of his favorite men’s floor exercise.
Shin Jaehwan of South Korea reclaimed the gold for his country, as he took an average of 14.783 after a huge 14.833 on his second vault. Nagonyy’s teammate Denis Abliazin also got the same average, but settled for the silver off of a tiebreaker on the vault scores.
Armenia’s Artur Davtyan got the bronze with a final score of 14.733.
Yulo, disappointed by his failure to win a medal in these games, however, vowed to come back strong.
“Gusto kong magpalakas. Feeling ko po may igagaling pa ako,” said Yulo, who is competing in the All-Japan Seniors next month.
“Hindi po muna ako makakauwi sa Pilipinas dahil may competition po ako next month. Gusto ko na nga pong bumawi,” Yulo said.
