Karl Eldrew Yulo made his elder brother, the country’s top gymnast Carlos Yulo, proud when he emerged as the most bemedalled athlete in the 2023 Palarong Pambansa on Friday.
The 15-year-old Yulo used a new routine to score big points in the floor exercises on the way to pulling off a six-medal sweep of Cluster 3 action in the secondary boys’ men’s artistics gymnastics at the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex in Manila.
A total of 14 new marks were set in the games, including two in swimming and archery on Thursday.
Yulo, an incoming Grade 10 student at Adamson University, did the double layout for the first time, consisting of two full flips in the air without tucking in the legs.
This earned Yulo 13.5 points, outscoring his National Capital Region teammate Hilarion Pernia, who made 12.1 points.
After this, Yulo went to dominate the horizontal bar, the vault, the horse, and was a part of the NCR’s team title conquest as well.
“The floor exercise was my most memorable routine. I used a new skill which is the double layout. It’s still a little messy. I need to clean up on its execution,” said Yulo, who is guided by her school coach/trainer Danica Guiritan.
In swimming, Ira Talosig, an 11th grader from Midsayap, North Cotabato, became one of the most bemedalled athletes over at the Marikina Sports Complex pool.
Talosig snared her fourth gold medal, this time in the secondary girls’ 800-meter freestyle event, with a time of 9:35.26.
The 17-year-old Talosig claimed her third gold medal in the secondary girls’ 1500-meter freestyle in 18 minutes, 25.09 seconds.
Talosig also topped the 400-meter freestyle and the 200-meter freestyle.
In athletics, Bacolod standout Mico Villaran emerged with three golds, outpacing his opponents in the secondary boys’ 110-meter hurdles, 200-meter run and the 400-meter hurdles.
Region IV-A’s Jamesray Ajido won the gold medal in the secondary boys’ 100-meter butterfly with a new mark of 56.78 seconds, while Bicolano bet Jemuel Boo de Leon broke his second meet record in 24.09 seconds in the secondary boys’ 50-meter butterfly.
Nine other swimmers joined De Leon in shattering the four-year record of 25.39 seconds.
NCR’s Lance Cruz clocked 2:25.29 in erasing the old record of 2:26.77 set by Jordan Lobos in the 2019 secondary boys’ 200-meter breaststroke.
In the boys’ secondary discus throw, Airex Gabriel Villanueva of Western Visayas set a new record with a throw of 42.86 meters, beating the five-year-old 42.67 of Ed de Lima of the Central Luzon region.
NCR took the top honors in the overall medal tally, getting 49 golds, 48 silvers and 38 bronzes, with Western Visayas (44-32-28) and Southern Tagalog (35-43-38) in second and third, respectively.
Western Visayas is in front of the elementary level medal count with a 18-19-14 haul.