Why Carlos Yulo joined just three apparatus at the world championships

Filipino Olympian Carlos Yulo was completely disappointed when he finished his maiden Olympic appearance in Tokyo last July without bagging a single medal.

That's why he made sure not to repeat the same mistake from the Summer Games when he returned for his next big event, the 50th FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Kitakyushu, Japan.

In the Olympics, he joined all six apparatus—but only opted to participate in three of those categories at the world championships: the vault, the parallel bars, and his favorite event, the floor exercise.

According to Gymnastics Association of the Philippines (GAP) president Cynthia Carrion, they opted that Yulo only joins three apparatus at the world championships to help him focus on the disciplines he's strong at.

That way, there would be higher chances of winning a medal for the wunderkind.

The decision paid off as the 21-year-old gymnast finished No. 1 in both the floor and parallel bars while he landed at the third spot in the vault to close out he qualification round in emphatic fashion.

Carlos Yulo ???????? waited seven subdivisions to deliver the leading score on Floor Exercise in qualifications at #Kitakyushu2021, but in reality he had been waiting to do this routine since the #Tokyo2020 #Olympics. "I wanted to step up my game," he said. #GWC2021 #Gymnastics pic.twitter.com/RCs27SDOTj

— FIG (@gymnastics) October 20, 2021

"Why would he join all the apparatus and get tired? He's saving his strength for the apparatus he knows he can win," Carrion told GMA News Online.

"He cannot win in the high bar or the rings or the pommel horse for now because the others are very strong. We decided he would just do the three apparatus where he's the strongest one and it worked."

In the Olympics, Yulo started his campaign doing the rings followed by the vault, which was the only event where he made it to the finals. After that, he joined the parallel bars, tallying 13.466, then the horizontal bars, and the floor exercise.

His last event was the pommel horse, where he scored 11.833.

Carrion shared that by the time Yulo went to do his floor exercise performance, where expectations were highest for him, fatigue had already become a factor for the young gymnast.

"Not like in the Olympics where he did all the apparatus and by the time he went to the floor, he was already tired. That's part of the reason why he didn't win in the Olympics," she added.

She added that joining all apparatus at the world championship won't benefit Yulo for now as the other three events are not his strengths yet.

The official also bared that there is a visible change in Yulo this time around, which she asserted played a crucial role in his stellar campaign in the qualification round.

"He got motivated because he was very disappointed in how he did in the Olympics when it was not supposed to be that way. He was supposed to be getting the gold. He got motivated and trained harder and made sure that he's more relaxed when he's competing instead of being tense," she shared.

"He's a different Caloy now. He's smiling, he's happy. He's relaxed and not so tense like the Olympics."

Yulo will try to win big in the medal round with the floor exercise finals taking place on Saturday, October 23, while the vault and parallel bars are slated for the following day.

—JMB, GMA News