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CARLOS YULO aims for nothing less than a gold medal at the Paris Olympics and vowed to rid the mistakes he committed in the year about to end.
“My ultimate goal this coming new year is to capture an Olympic gold,” Yulo told BusinessMirror on Wednesday. “And avoid repeating the same mistakes [in 2023].”
“I want to move on,” he said. “I learned a lot from it.”
Yulo parted ways in June with Japanese Munehiro Kugiyama, his long-time coach who nurtured him from an unpolished gem to a two-time world champion and Tokyo Olympian.
He has made the Intramuros gym in Manila as his training base and no longer Tokyo where he trained at least for the past five years while he was on academic scholarship.
Those privileges given by government to elite athletes are gone, but the 23-year-old’s spartan training for Paris continues.
And he has a new coach, also a Japanese, according to Gymnastics Association of the Philippines president Cynthia Carrion-Norton.
Carrion-Norton told BusinessMirror that Tomoharu Sano took over Kugiyama, who steered Yulo to a total 17 gold medals during their athlete-coach tandem that started in 2016.
Sano is a former member of Japan’s artistic team having won a gold medal in parallel bars, a silver in the individual all-around and bronze in horizontal bars at the 2006 Asian championships in Surat, India, in 2006.
“They like each other and it’s okay with coach Mune [Kugiyama],” Carrion said. “Coach Tomo is not an Olympian but a good gymnast before.”
Yulo, along with Aleah Finnegan, already qualified for Paris and Carrion-Norton said that training camps abroad have been lined up for the elite athlete from Leveriza.
Sano and the GAP picked England, Spain and Japan for Yulo’s training camp.
“These are for his exposures and skills-honing, to enhance his skills and knowing who his competitors are,” Carrion said.
Sano, Carrion-Norton said, is currently remotely coaching Yulo.
“He’s teaching children in Japan, by April, he’ll be free to coach Caloy,” she said.
Yulo said he won’t have difficulty switching to Sano’s methods.
“We already met many times before and it’s okay with me,” he said. “We’re still waiting for his set up, but of course I’m excited to work with him.”
Yulo bagged gold medals in parallel bars, floor exercise and vault to go with a silver and a bronze at the Asian championships in Singapore last June and also won two golds and two silvers at the Cambodia Southeast Asian Games in May.
The Paris Summer Olympics are from July 23 to August 11.
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