OPINION | Carlos Yulo: Fearless and peerless

August 4, 2024 , 11:34 AM

By Anthony Divinagracia*

(August 4, 2024) – Intramuros is a historical site with many stories to tell. Deep in the famous Walled City was a newly built gym where I met Carlos Yulo one summer afternoon in May.

The gym that hosted Caloy’s intense training since returning overseas was a microwave that baked and caked the hell out of his 4-foot-11 frame. In the vernacular, parang pugon.

“Hindi ka naiinitan?,” I asked.

“Mainit po pero okay lang po. Kakabitan naman na raw po nila ng malaking fan at aircon ‘yung [training] area next week,” he replied.

My purpose seeing Caloy, the beloved Golden Boy of Philippine gymnastics, that day was academic – with jilted attempts to somersault at the journalistic. I requested Gymnastics Association of the Philippines president Cynthia Carrion if I can conduct a short interview with Caloy for the Governance Innovation Report on sports funding that I’m finishing under the MPM program of Ateneo. My colleague, Juno Buena and a handful of other sports journalists were also there to shoot a video content about Caloy for their respective Olympics specials.

Paris 2024 Olympics – Artistic Gymnastics – Men’s Floor Exercise Final – Bercy Arena, Paris, France – August 03, 2024. Carlos Edriel Yulo of Philippines celebrates after his performance. REUTERS/Hannah Mckay

Caloy led us to an air-conditioned room to escape the punishing summer heat that tyrannized our tolerance. In one quiet corner, I observed and waited as Caloy fielded questions about his Olympic preparation and personal life.

One query vaulted me off the monotony of the moment.

It was about Caloy’s relationship with his current belle. The lady was unfairly blamed for keeping Caloy preoccupied, causing a supposed dip in his recent performances. He had a hard time qualifying for Paris.

For a time, he was coachless after partying ways with Munehiro Kugimiya, the Japanese mentored chiefly credited for transforming him into a world-class act.

But Caloy, outside the four-cornered judgment of the mat, never wobbled. His knees tucked under a shirt of sweat as he sat on a steady stool before an invisible jury of naysayers and bashers. Yet his heart was far from bending nor caving from the online dissing and quizzing.

“Hindi ko naman po mape-please lahat ng tao… May kanya-kanya silang pananaw basta po ako gagawin ko lang ang best ko… Happy po ako sa relationship namin,” he said in between sweeps of smile and silence.

Peering at Caloy from a few meters shuttled me back to Tokyo, where he failed to qualify in the floor finals and narrowly missed a bronze in the vault. The 2021 debacle never left the Filipino wunderkind. It grew a life of its own maybe the size bigger than the country’s expectation.

Caloy loves Kobe and his Mamba Mentality. But the court of public opinion presides a different ball game. It only respects the referee of perception and the result of competition.

“Naiisip mo pa rin ba ‘yung nangyari sa Tokyo?,” I asked.

“Opo. Marami po akong natutunan ‘dun,” he said.

Lessons.

On a cloudy, relatively humid afternoon in Paris, Caloy remembered everything.

The microwave gym.

The sweat-drenched practice shirt.

The spills in between passes.

The faulty landings during dismounts.

The unsteady feet.

The misplaced hands.

The doubts, fears, rejection, and so on.

Inside Out 1 and 2 filled the start list between Carlos and Yulo.

On a cloudy, relatively humid afternoon in Paris, the Golden Boy of Philippine gymnastics, recited these lessons to near-perfection like a Parisian bard declaiming poetry in motion.

It was a masterpiece of fine curation in the Louvre of human emotion. Every masterpiece, they say, has a cheap copy. But before a gallery straddling between awe and excitement, all artistic imitations failed. Every inch of Caloy was fearless. And undeniably now, peerless.

It was a performance smithed and styled like a personal revolution echoing liberty, fraternity, and equality in bold and imposing figures for the bustling French capital to see.

Here, Caloy found liberty from the shackles of past disappointments.

Here, the Golden Boy of Philippine gymnastics has fraternized with himself again.

Here, Carlos Yulo is the first among equals.

Indeed, Intramuros, like Paris, has many stories to tell.

Now, one of them is about the young man who gifted the Philippines a historic gold medal in Olympic gymnastics.

To all this, Caloy stays calm.

Because tomorrow and in the next, we claim, there’s more to come.

*The author is the head of News5 Digital.

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