A Filipino teenager has taken gold in the men’s floor final of the 2019 World Cup Gymnastics championships held in Melbourne, Australia.
On Saturday, 19-year-old Carlos Yulo, who finished in third place in the competition’s qualifying round, took 14.566 points in the final to win the gold medal, beating out 25 competitors from all over the world, Rappler reported.
Yulo won against Japan’s Hibiki Arayashiki, Spain’s Rayderley Zapata and Great Britain’s Dominick Cunningham, who all finished with 14.500 points. Arayashicki won the silver medal while Zapata and Cummingham both settled for bronze. Yulo was the only competitor from the Philippines.
In November 2018, Yulo made history for the Philippines by winning the country’s first medal in gymnastics in a world championship event. Yulo, who at the time was the youngest of nine competitors, won a bronze medal at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Doha, Qatar.
Yulo was the first Filipino and first male Southeast Asian gymnast to win a medal in the world championships. This year, he aims to accumulate as many points as possible in World Cup events in order to earn a place in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
“There is a high chance that I can make it to the Olympics if I give it my best. It’s doable,” Yulo said.