Inquirer photo
CARLOS Yulo vividly remembers the days when, as a poor seven-year-old, he used to jump, hop and somersault in the playgrounds of Leveriza, Manila.
Those typical mornings and afternoons fooling around at the playground are memories close to his heart and became the foundation of a fledgling gymnast who is now toying at the brink of immortality and chance to give the Philippines its first ever gold medal in the Olympics.
That Olympic dream is no longer impossible. After all, he already gave the country its first ever gold in the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships this year.
From impressing his humble neighborhood with his flexibility to doing wonders before the world, the 19-year-old has reached a milestone he never did imagine even in his wildest dreams.
And it’s a no brainer for the Inquirer Bandera sports team to pick him unanimously as its Athlete of the Year for 2019.
Yulo, a perennial Palarong Pambansa champion, is one of the country’s hopes in quenching an almost century of gold medal thirst when he secured berth for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
The 4-foot-9 dynamo qualified for the grandest quadrennial sporting event after reaching the top 10 of men’s individual all-around final at the 2019 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships held in Stuttgart, Germany last October.
With his epic performance there which snowballed him to instant fame, Yulo imprinted his name in the history books.
The teenage phenom became the first Filipino world champion in the sport, besting top-ranked gymnasts across continents to rule the men’s floor exercise final with a score of 15.300.
Yulo didn’t just made the Philippines proud as he turned out to be the first male Southeast Asian to capture a gold in the World Championships. In 2018, he became the first in the region to win a world championship medal with a bronze finish in Doha, Qatar.
A month after his significant showing in Europe, Yulo delivered a masterful performance in home soil at the recently-concluded 30th Southeast Asian Games as he handed the Philippines its first-ever artistic gymnastics men’s individual all-around gold medal.
The prodigy who used to watch Filipino gymnasts train and compete inside the venue which soon became the place where he will be the one being cheered next, twirled up in the air and hung in bars gracefully inside the historic Rizal Memorial Sports Complex to cap off his campaign in the biennial meet with two gold (all-around and floor exercise) and five silver (pommel horse, still rings, parallel bars, vault and horizontal bars) medals.
The most bemedalled and richest athlete of them all with millions of pesos of incentives amassed after the biennial meet both from the government and private sectors, Yulo conspicuously proved how hard work, patience and will power to go beyond miles will drive one to apex.
Yulo, an immediate world champion a year after his senior debut, knows no rest even after these triumphs. At a young age, he knew that this is just the beginning of boundless opportunities waving at him.
For the country’s sake and urge to mine that long-yearned gold, he flew directly to Japan a few days after the SEA Games to start preparing for the biggest competition of his life under his long-time Japanese coach Munehiro Kugimiya.
That boy from Leveriza has come a long way yet his journey has just begun.
ANOTHER PINOY WORLD CHAMPION
The Inquirer Bandera sports team is also giving special recognition to the other Filipino who became a world champion for the first time this year.
In chess, Wesley So, the Filipino grandmaster who formerly represented the Philippines in international meets until 2014 but now banners the USA flag, toppled World No.1 Magnus Carlsen for world title.
So beat Carlsen, 13.5-2.5, to clinch the inaugural World Fischer Random Chess Championship at the Henie Onstad Center in Baerum, Norway last November.
Despite playing for another country, GM So remains Filipino by heart and never forgets his roots.