Revenge is a dish best served golden.

Filipino gymnastics star Carlos Edriel Yulo delivered a dazzling 15.000 routine in the men’s floor exercise event finals for the Philippines’ first ever gold in artistic gymnastics at the Paris 2024 Olympics last Saturday, Aug. 3. 

With the historic win, the Manila native succeeded in his revenge tour in golden fashion, following a disappointing Tokyo 2020 Olympics bid where he narrowly missed a medal finish in vault at 4th place.

“I’m so overwhelmed. I’m feeling grateful for having this medal and for God. He protected me, as always,” Yulo said in an online interview. “He gave me the strength to get through this kind of performance and perform this well.”

Yulo now joins Filipina weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz as the two Olympic gold medalists in Philippine history. Diaz achieved her feat at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics in the 55kg category of women’s weightlifting. 

Other medal hopefuls

With the Philippines on the board in the medal tally, Filipinos are eagerly anticipating for more as several countrymen are one step away from securing a medal finish of their own.

Just hours before Yulo’s victory, EJ Obiena powered through a shaky start to book a ticket to the men’ pole vault finals. The world’s No. 2 cleared both 5.70m and 5.75m in first attempts after failing to overcome the much lower 5.60m bar twice.

“We missed two attempts at 60 and you wanna go at 70? And I haven’t made a bar. Are you sure?” Obiena said as he recalled his coach’s decision to quit the 5.60m and move up a pole with his tournament life on the line with his final attempt. 

It appeared that coach Vitaly Petrov made the right call as the 28-year-old pole vaulter overcame the higher pole with ease.

Carlo Paalam’s medal quest ended in a 2-3 split decision exit in the quarterfinals of men’s boxing 57kg division in the hands of Australian boxer Charlie Senior. 

Filipina boxers

Only two Filipina boxers are left vying for an Olympic medal in the sport. Nesthy Petecio and Aira Villegas reached the quarterfinals, leaving them with one more hurdle to clear for a medal finish. 

Petecio bested French home bet Amina Zidani in the last two rounds of the bout for an eventual 4-1 split decision victory in the round of 16 of women’s 57kg division.

The Tokyo 2020 Olympics silver medalist decided to up the ante in the final two rounds after losing the first, 2-3, in the judges’ score cards. With a much more dominant showing, she flipped the scores with a 5-0 Round 2 performance and a 3-2 final round to clinch the quarterfinals berth.

On the other hand, Villegas pulled off an upset over second seed Roumaysa Boualam of Algeria in yet another unanimous decision victory at the round of 16 women’s 50kg division.

The Tacloban City native outclassed the Algerian in the opening salvo as she quickly established the advantage early on with a 5-0 first round. After a wobbly 3-2 second round in favor of Boualam, Villegas made sure to close it out cleanly in the final round with a 5-0 beating to punch her ticket to the quarterfinals.

The golden routine

Carlos Yulo’s astounding performance netted him a score of 15.0, the only 15-point floor routine of the entire men’s artistic gymnastics tournament. 

Yulo, who performed third, quickly denied Israel’s Artem Dolgopya’s hopes of a back-to-back Olympic gold by pulling slightly ahead of the world champion’s 14.966 routine before him. 

Diving deep into the floor performance, the Filipino performed a much more difficult routine (6.600 d-score) from his qualification one (6.300 d-score). The new routine in Paris, however, was already unveiled by the gymnast in the all-around finals last July 31 where he scored 7.733 in execution—way lower than his impressive 8.4 e-score in this event final.

Level of difficulty

This change in difficulty level can be observed in Yulo’s upgraded second pass of a double twist into a double front tuck combination for the additional 0.3 d-score.

What also set him apart was his overall clean performance with exceptional landings—especially when he stuck his three-and-a-half twist dismount to seal the deal.

Being the third performer out of the eight finalists, Yulo cemented himself early at first place. The country eagerly sat at the edge of their seats.

The bronze medalist, Jake Jarman, was also met with congratulations and pride from the Filipinos due to him being a Filipino British gymnast. The son of a Cebuana native, the athlete representing the United Kingdom scored 14.933, only 0.033 lower than the silver medalist.

Carlos Yulo seeks to enact his revenge once more at the vault event finals on Aug. 4—the very event in which he almost won a medal in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

Read more: Quest for gold: Gymnast Carlos Yulo seeks revenge in Paris