Eldrew Yulo came to Japan wanting to simply savor the moment.
Five days of competition later, he left with his first-ever Asian Games medal.
The senior-level debutant made his first appearance one to remember, pulling off a stunning bronze-medal finish in the men’s horizontal bar on the final day of artistic gymnastics at the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games on Friday at the Nagoya General Gymnasium.
It was a nervy competition, with half of the field stumbling off the bar, including floor exercise silver medalist Milad Karimi. Yulo, however, held on and delivered a clean routine that earned him a strong execution score.
Yulo and Karimi both finished with 13.666 points, but the Filipino’s superior execution score of 8.566 gave him the edge and secured the bronze medal.
The achievement came on the heels of his elder brother Carlos’ second gold medal of the Games in the men’s vault nearly four hours earlier.
Carlos nearly added another medal in the parallel bars, but ultimately missed the podium by just 0.133 points to Uzbekistan’s Rasuljon Abdurakhimov, who claimed the bronze.
The Yulo brothers will look to carry this winning momentum into next month’s World Championships in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
Late last year, Eldrew also earned a bronze on the same apparatus at the Junior World Championships in Pasay City.
