On that 12×12-meter exercise floor, Carlos showcased a powerful routine that made all his sacrifices worth it.
Even with the Olympic gold medal around his neck, Carlos Yulo continued to shake his head in apparent disbelief. Minutes before the winners of the men’s floor exercise stepped on the podium, he sat on the floor, head between his hands, and cried tearlessly.
He raised his index finger to the sky (or to the roof of Bercy Arena), then pointed to his gold medal—and a smile finally crept on his boyish face. The 24-year-old then laid his hand on his heart and, for the first time in the 2024 Paris Olympics, the Philippine national anthem was played with Carlos mouthing the words to Lupang Hinirang.
Carlos Yulo will be coming home to a very grateful nation after the Olympics. The only question is whether he will be wearing one or two gold medals at his ticker-tape parade.
Exactly seven days after the Olympics opened, Carlos has secured for the Philippines its first medal in these Summer Games, and only the second gold medal in the country’s 100 years of participation. With weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz winning our first gold at Tokyo 2020 and an entire country expecting a bigger medal haul than Tokyo’s four, pressure is on for the remaining Filipino Olympians from the 22-member national team.
Carlos didn’t disappoint. On that 12×12-meter exercise floor our golden gymnast, who as a young boy loved tumbling so much that this grandfather Rodrigo Frisco introduced him to the gymnastics association, performed at a level we all knew he could. He showcased a powerful routine with a difficulty score of 6.6, the highest of the event.
Carlos scored 15.000; silver medalist and defending champion Artem Dolgopyat of Israel scored 14.966; and bronze medalist Jake Jarman of Great Britain scored 14.933.
NBC Olympics quoted Yulo as saying after the competition, “I’m so overwhelmed. I’m feeling grateful for having this medal and for God. He protected me, as always. He gave me the strength to get through this kind of performance and perform this well.”
The men’s floor exercise was followed by the women’s vault final, where American gymnast Simone Biles won her 7th career gold (10 medals in all) across three Olympics starting in Rio 2016; and the pommel horse final with Rhys McClenaghan taking the gold for Ireland.
Seven years, then a split
Born to Andrew Yulo and Angelica Poquiz Yulo, Carlos is the second of four siblings (his younger siblings are also gymnasts). In his younger years, he competed at the Palarong Pambansa representing Aurora Quezon Elementary School and later Adamson University, winning medals in floor exercise, vault, team, and individual all-around.
2014 was a turning point for Carlos. The ASEAN School Games, a multi-sport event for high school students in Southeast Asian countries, was hosted by the Philippines. He won gold medals in floor exercise and parallel bars. In the same year he competed at the Pacific Rim Championships in Richmond, Canada, where he finished sixth and eighth in the same events, respectively.
In 2015, Carlos traveled to Yokohama, Japan for the International Junior Competition where he won bronze in vault. The following year, in 2016, he was offered to be coached by Munehiro Kugimiya, whom he first met in 2013 in his last Palarong Pambansa, under the Japan Olympic Association’s scholarship program.
Like other Filipino athletes whose advancement required international coaches and exposure, Carlos moved to Tokyo in 2016 and studied at Teikyo University where he earned an associate degree in literature in 2022.
“My mother told me it was better to go to Japan and train with coach Munehiro, so I went. I was a shy kid then, and there was a problem with communication. It was a bit hard since I was alone,” Carlos told Olympics.com. He now lists Japanese as one of the languages he speaks.
Still a junior under Kugimiya, Carlos won five medals at the 2016 edition of the Pacific Rim Championships. The following year he won gold in vault and silver in floor exercise at the 2017 International Junior Competition despite a shoulder injury.
In 2018, he made his senior international debut at the Melbourne World Cup and won bronze in vault. It was the first of three medals in three international competitions he won in a month. He would spend the next several years collecting medals from Asian and World Championships. At the Tokyo Olympics, however, he failed to finish in the top three, but his fourth-place finish fueled him to work harder for the 2024 Olympics.
‘Coachless,’ training around the world
In a move that surprised many, Carlos and coach Munehiro Kugimiya parted ways in September 2023. He would later say in interviews that he was grateful to Kugimiya for his training and that the split was amicable.
In February this year, Jo Gunston wrote on Olympics.com that the coachless Carlos Yulo was taken in by the gymnastics community which offered their training facilities.
“If Carlos Yulo was a pop star, he’d currently be managerless but collaborating with the best in his field around the world, working with different artists and producers to eke out the best of himself and gain inspiration for his next album due in July. As it is, the Filipino is an artistic gymnast without a coach who is dropping into gymnasiums around the world to train with athletes of a similar calibre, eking out training tips from coaches at each stopover ahead of competing at Paris 2024, in less than five months’ time.”
Invitations came from South Korea and Great Britain, where Carlos trained alongside his peers and competitors. He would later go back to his former junior coach Aldrin Castañeda.
Carlos said after his win in Paris, “I’m grateful for the people who really supported me. I could not do it without them.”
He will be coming home to an even more grateful nation. The only question is whether he will be wearing one or two gold medals at his ticker-tape parade.
Carlos is competing in the vault final today, August 4, at 10:30 pm (Manila time). Here’s where to watch the Olympics.
