Carlos Yulo goes for gold in floor exercise finals; Carlo Paalam, Aira Villegas chase sure bronze medal in Olympic boxing QF

Three Filipino athletes will eye to deliver three medals at most for the Philippines as gymnast Carlos Yulo and boxing aces Carlo Paalam and Aira Villegas go for broke in their respective campaigns on Saturday in the 2024 Paris Olympics.

The 24-year-old Yulo, who was coming off a 12th place finish in the men's artistic gymnastics individual all-around finals last Thursday, will look to bounce back as he now sees action in the men's floor exercise finals set at 9:30 p.m. at the Bercy Arena. 

Yulo is coming into the floor finals as the second best gymnast during the qualification round where he displayed his prowess in his pet event and netted 14.766 points behind 6.300 from difficulty and 8.466 from execution. 

Standing in his way is top seed Jake Jarman, a 22-year-old Filipino-British gymnast who topped the qualification after collecting 14.966 to mark his impressive Summer Games debut. 

Aside from Jarman, also seen as Yulo's fiercest competitor are Artem Dolgopyat of Israel, Rayderley Zapata of Spain, and Milad Karimi of Kazakhstan, all of whom are finalists during the Tokyo Olympics with Dolgopyat winning the gold medal. 

Yulo is looking to add another floor exercise title in his growing collection, after having ruled the apparatus in the World Championship in 2019; Asian Championship in 2022, 20223, and 2024; and SEA Games in 2019 and 2021. 

Meanwhile, boxers Paalam and Villegas will shoot for assured bronze medals in their separate quarterfinals bid. 

Paalam, a silver medalist in the previous Summer Games in Tokyo, will slug it out against Charlie Senior of Australia in the quarterfinals of men's 57kg division set at 9:46 p.m. at the North Paris Arena. 

The 26-year-old Paalam is looking to pick up where he left off from his round of 16 win against Jude Galladgher of Ireland, where the Filipino pugilist drew a unanimous decision triumph. 

Villegas, on the other hand, will try to extend her impressive Olympics debut so far, squaring off with hometown bet Wassila Lkhadiri of France in the women's 50kg quarterfinals at 3:20 a.m. on early Sunday. 

Pole vaulter EJ Obiena will also open his highly-anticipated campaign in the men's pole vault qualification at 4:10 p.m. at the Stade de France. 

—JKC, GMA Integrated News