MANILA – Caloy Yulo became the new champion in the vault competition of the FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championship after his near-flawless routines in the final on Sunday in Kitakyushu, Japan won him the gold.
Bouncing back from a fifth-place finish in his pet event, the floor exercise final, on Saturday, Yulo scored an average of 14.916 points in the vault final, enough to rule the eight-man field and take home the championship.
In his first vault, he went for a Kasamatsu routine, which earned him a 14.8.
He then performed a Dragulescu routine on his second try, which he landed almost perfectly, meriting him a 15.033 for the aforementioned average.
Hidenobu Yonekura of Japan took home the silver after averaging 14.866 points in his two jumps, while Andrey Medvedev of Israel won the bronze with an average of 14.649.
Ukraine’s Nazar Cherpunyi, who topped the qualifying phase on Wednesday, made a huge threat to Yulo’s bid as his first attempt gave him a 14.866.
However, he failed to land properly on his own Kasamatsu stunt and settled for a 13.433 in his second vault for an average of 14.149, dropping him to seventh. Yulo is eyeing a second gold for the day as he is competing in the parallel bars final as of posting.