Carlos Yulo had a rough night across the six apparatuses to end with 82.098 points for eighth place in the men’s all-around of the 51st Artistic Gymnastics World Championships, Saturday morning (Philippine time) at the M&S Bank Arena in Liverpool, United Kingdom.
It was an expected solid start for the 22-year-old standout as the top group, where he belonged along with the seven other best qualifiers, started on the floor. Taking the huge tumbling passes and skills that saw him top the apparatuses’ qualifiers, the 2019 World champion in the apparatus scored 15.166 to go into the early lead.
Yulo, however, encountered problems again with the pommel horse, and despite sticking on the apparatus this time, he ended with just 11.900.
The judges were similarly not sold on his take on the still rings where he initially scored 13.500, half a point below his qualifying mark. Yulo submitted an inquiry and received a score change of 13.800.
The next two apparatuses breathed life into his campaign — the vault and the parallel bars.
Yulo was one of the few gymnasts who went for a vault with a D score of 6.000 and despite a bad landing due to over-rotation on the piked Dragulescu, he still managed to get a decent 14.166.
His biggest performance of the day came in the parallel bars where he also scored 15.166, the best score among all the finalists, along with Germany’s Lukas Dauser.
The last apparatus — the horizontal bar, though, summed up Yulo’s night as he failed to swing out of a close catch on the Kovacs and had to recycle his moves for an 11.900 final score.
Olympic champion Hashimoto Daiki of Japan recovered from his subpar qualification and team final performances to annex the World title with 87.198, comfortably ahead of the erstwhile titleholder Zhang Boheng of China’s 86.765. Top qualifier Tanigawa Wataru, also of Japan, rounded the podium with 85.231.
Yulo will try to reclaim his World title on floor exercise later in the evening on Saturday (Philippine time) at 9:30 p.m. He will close his World campaign with two more apparatus finals on vault and on parallel bars on Sunday, also at 9:30 p.m.
