Philippines hauls medals in 2 straight 'golden' days
MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines waited a hundred years for this Olympic moment.
This moment spanned two days, August 3 and 4. Gymnast Carlos Edriel Yulo delivered two straight Olympic golds. (Yes, you’ve read that sentence right.)
Two female boxers, flyweight Aira Villegas and featherweight and Tokyo Olympics silver medalist Nesthy Petecio, got assured bronze medals given their quarterfinal victories, while Yulo was scooping golds for two straight days.
Never in the history of the quadrennial Olympic Games that this underdog Southeast Asian country enjoyed two straight days of winning Olympic gold medals — of hauling multiple medals — to outleap itself as a sporting nation.
Difficult routines as gold mines
August 3 and 4 did belong to the 24-year-old Yulo, whose 6.600 and 6.000 start-up difficulty scores in the floor exercises and the vault, respectively, led to his homeland’s best Olympic Games outing ever.
Since Yulo started winning world-level medals at the 2018 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Doha, Paris 2024 saw Yulo reach his peak — exactly what former Japanese coach Munehiro Kugiyama predicted some five years ago.
Yulo’s 15.116 in the vault is his highest score ever in the apparatus, propelled by a 15.433 on his first vault.
“First vault is amazing,” said International Gymnast Magazine on its annotation. Yulo did a “Ri II” (named after North Korean vaulter Ri Se Gwang), which is “a piked” version of the Dragulescu — a handspring double somersault, with one’s legs tucked to a gymnast’s chest area, and ending with a half-twist upon landing.
Ri II, a front handspring front double-piked somersault with a half twist, was what Yulo did. Upon falling down, Yulo held his piked position “strongly,” as the Olympic Games broadcast commentators noticed. His left foot just barely touched the center line in a nice landing.
“Good form, good height, good landing, just a tiny hop - the score should be big,” IGM annotated.
Nobody came close to Yulo’s first vault score, that being the push to just make ensure that he lands nicely in his final vault. The 15.433 is Yulo’s best-ever vault.
Come his final vault, Yulo did a Kasumatsu (beginning with a quarter-turned position prior to thumping the vault happening on his right, then he made two twists even if his right knee got slightly bent toward landing).
But the landing of Yulo, even with a hop “holds it there, to make sure it is just a single step,” IGM said.
The total’s 14.800, just enough for his 15.116 average and the second gold medal.
Difficulty in outleaping Olympic nerves
The first gold’s the nail-biter. Given Yulo’s 6.600 difficulty start-up score, he started off with a 2 ½ twist then a double pike, with just a small hop. Then he made a front double full-to-front double tuck, even if Yulo made a bigger hop.
The middle part of the routine then saw Yulo do a neat full-twisting double layout stuck, then he upped the ante with a triple twist on the side. The second-to-the-last pass saw Yulo do a full Randi, then got that tiny hop on his left side.
The final pass was a 3 ½ twist and he thudded the floor with his feet straight. “Argh!,” Yulo said, raising both clenched fists to the air.
“We are going to have a new Olympic champion here!” IGM annotated.
“Before I came here, this routine wasn’t that consistent. In the qualifications, I played it very safely,” Yulo told International Gymnast Magazine after his performance.
“Today, I felt I couldn’t hold back and hesitate. If I really wanted to win, I needed to give my everything… I really wanted to achieve this.”
Yulo’s years of doing that 6.600 floor routine, after the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the 2021 World Championships, finally hit paydirt.
Just when most Filipinos in the motherland slept given a six-hour time difference, Aira Villegas confronted a raucous hometown crowd and got a sure bronze medal in a 3-2 upset of seventh seed Wassila Lkhadiri of France to end August 3.
Nerves came after round two scores were flashed: a judge apiece, and three similar 19-all scores for Villegas and Lkhadiri. When the 3-2 verdict was howled, Villegas jumped twice in the air, then pounded the middle of the ring twice, in relief and in glee.
Petecio gets the ball rolling
Nesthy Petecio then started off the August 4 medal haul by dominating Zichun Xu of China, 5-0.
Xu upset tournament top seed Irma Testa of Ireland in the round-of-32. But Petecio showed the class of her boxing that won the silver in Tokyo 2020.
And the Philippines’ Olympic boxing odyssey, currently taken over by women, continues with now 10 medals — even if there's no gold medal yet.
To earn silver medals, Villegas must overcome Buse Naz Çakiroglu of Turkey this August 6, while Petecio needs to stop Julia Szeremeta of Poland on August 7.
The women’s flyweight finals are set for August 9, and that of the featherweight class August 10 — two straight days that Villegas and Petecio hope to make it.
A third straight Philippine Olympic medal day?
If World No. 2 pole vaulter Ernest John Obiena lands a medal in his final round on August 5 (Paris time), that’s another Philippine Olympic first: three straight days of medal hauling, and a fifth Olympic medal.
What’s a third feat for the Philippines is three straight Olympic Games editions of winning a medal: 1928-1932-1936 being the first one (five bronzes), and 1988-1992-1996 being the second one (a silver and two bronzes, plus a gold and two bronzes in non-counted demonstration sports).
The nation was in euphoria over weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz’s silver medal in Rio de Janeiro 2016 and her dramatic 2020 gold medal feat in Tokyo, with the latter complementing silver medals from Petecio and Carlo Paalam and a bronze medal from Eumir Felix Marcial (all boxers).
Then Paris 2024 came along, the centennial of the Philippines’ first Olympic participation.
But for now, two straight days of medal hauling — and gold medal scooping by Southeast Asia’s best gymnast Yulo — is the Philippines’ greatest memory at the Olympic Games.
- Latest
- Trending
