Carlos Yulo is back on top of the gymnastics world, soaring up the apparatus empty-handed and landing with the gold medal in his hands.
Yulo redeemed himself from a series of heartbreaks by capturing the vault title in the 50th FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships at the Kitakyushu General Gymnasium in Japan Sunday.
A day after failing to defend his floor exercise title, Yulo vaulted his way to the top this time by capturing the gold medal with a score of 14.916.
He posted 14.800 on his first vault and 15.033 on his second for a second world championship crown.
The victory somehow erased the stigma of his missed chances at the Tokyo Olympics last August, where he failed to advance in the floor exercise finals and narrowly missed the podium by placing fourth in vault.
Adding salt to his wounds was his fifth place finish in Saturday’s floor exercise finals.
But Yulo seemed undeterred in his bid to claim his place on top, saying in earlier interviews that he is using the world championships as a sort of redemption from a painful debut Olympics stint.
Yulo made his intentions felt at Wednesday’s qualifications when he finished third with 14.808 behind top qualifier Nazar Chepurnyi of Ukraine.
Chepurnyi, who was competing last in the finals, ended up seventh with 14.149.
Meanwhile, Japan’s Hidenobu Yonekura settled for the silver with 14.866 while Israel’s Andrey Medvedev claimed bronze with 14.649.
Completing the finalists were Italy’s Thomas Grasso at fourth with 14.549, Korea’s Yang Hakseon at fifth with 14.399, Great Britain’s Courtney Tulloch at sixth with 14.383, and Canada’s William Emard with 13.199 at eighth.
Yulo is currently competing for another world title in the parallel bars at press time.
He turned heads after topping the qualifications with a score of 15.566.
The 20-year-old is up against Japan’s Daiki Hashimoto and Kazuma Kaya, Switzerland’s Christian Baumann, Brazil’s Caio Souza, China’s Hu Xuwei and Shi Cong, and United States’ Yul Moldauer.
New all-around champion Zhang Boheng has withdrawn from the finals and was replaced by teammate Cong.