Caloy Yulo will vie for the vault gold but would have to witness the floor final at the sidelines. Jade Moya (file photo) |
MANILA--Caloy Yulo gets a chance at a Tokyo Olympic medal after qualifying for the final of men's artistic gymnastics vault event following the conclusion of the preliminary round on Saturday night at the Ariake Gymnastics Centre in the Japanese capital.
Yulo placed sixth in the vault after averaging 14.712 points after two jumps, well within the Top 8 cutoff.
Shin Jeah-Wan of South Korea and Artur Davtyan of Armenia topped the qualifiers after getting identical 14.866 averages.
Turkey's Ahmet Onder got the last ride to the Monday final after getting the tiebreaker over South Korea's Yang Hak-Seon.
However, Yulo faltered in the other disciplines, including the floor exercise.
Yulo, the 2019 world champion in the floor and the world number one, crashed out in the said discipline, only scoring 13.566 points, good for a tie for 43rd place with Ukraine's Petro Pakhniuk.
Pakhniuk clinched the tiebreaker on a better execution score.
Yulo started his routine on a sour note with two failed landings, which summed up the rough outing for him in his pet event.
Russia's Nikita Nagornyy, who many believe would be Yulo's biggest rival for the floor gold, made the final after landing in second place with 15.066, behind the 15.2 of Israel's Artem Dolgopyat, another known favorite for the championship.
Yulo was also 55th place in the parallel bars, another known strength of his, 24th in the rings, 63rd in the horizontal bars, and 69th in the pommel horse.
He finished 47th in the all-around race, way outside of the Top 24 cutoff even if the limit of having only two gymnasts per country has been put in place.
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